Her fiancé worked away, and therefore, when all of her flat packed new furniture got delivered including, but not exclusive to, a double bed frame, a glass dining table with four matching chairs, a glass coffee table and two bed side tables, she had to call for reinforcements... aka, me.
Now most furniture that requires DIY construction, comes with instructions.
But the thing about instructions is, they're extremely boring...
And so we did what any two adults would do, when presented with such a task- we looked at the pictures and hoped for the best.
Most of them were pretty straight forward, the wooden slats fit into the slat sized holes in the bed frame, the metal poles screwed into the leg holes in the coffee table, and the black caps fixed on the end of the chair legs.
We made do, and regardless of our sex, we built some bitchin' furniture, without the help of a man.
Fast forward to the present, and alas, she has moved again, which meant, a) unbuilding the old furniture in which we were so proud, and b) building new, much more complex furniture which may have tested us to new limits.
The trick with building furniture is- sometimes you need tools.
As two, young, semi-clueless and inexperienced furniture building woman, we did not seem to have the required tools just laying around, and due to not having read the instructions prior, we hit a dead end, fairly early on.
NEVERTHELESS, we managed to fearlessly, and successfully, put together a glass tv unit, without reading the instructions, and only briefly glancing at the pictures to see what order the screws went in.
After this build went surprisingly well, we thought, you know what? We are strong, furniture building savvy legends- we might as well put the new bed together whilst we're here and on a roll.
But sadly, that is where we met our match, because unlike the good old fashioned wooden slatted, metal framed, screw in double bed from the previous year, this new, modern, updated bed set required one thing that we, as rookie furniture builders, had never seen coming: A drill.
A drill, which we did not possess, but did we let that stop us? HELLLL NO!
Never taking no for an answer, we ploughed on and attempted to use a screw driving kit, which needless to say, was not much help at all.
The instructions also had a very small, missable instruction in the top right hand corner, that told us a spanner was also required to satisfactorily build this bed.
And alas, we did not possess either of these tools.
And so, our very brief, very victorious furniture building careers, came to an abrupt, and very sad end.
So- You're looking to build some furniture?
Here's some handy tips:
1) Maybe read the instructions first- make sure you've got the required tools on hand, and if not, acquire or borrow some
2) If the furniture item looks fairly straightforward, maybe just skim the pictures, just in case
3) If a drill is required and you are a first timer, and fairly uncoordinated, accident prone or just generally retarded, maybe call in a brother, father or tool-handy friend to assist you in the safe usage of such a powerful instrument
4) If it looks like it does on the box, or close enough, then you've done well
5) Build large objects in the room you're planning on using it, because sometimes, after hours of putting a double bed frame together, or a heavy bookshelf, there is no way in hell you're going to get it through a tiny door frame without having to unbuild it and start over...
6) Always make sure you invite your super helpful, reliable and extremely attractive best buddy over to, at the very least, supervise the building whilst diminishing your chocolate stash
In the end boys and girls, and wandering almost-adults, building furniture can be surprisingly fun and rewarding, and it's really, not as hard as it looks if you keep to the very basic stuff!
