A desk might be the easiest piece of furniture to buy. Or at least it should be. A flat surface to write on, a few drawers to store things in, maybe a shelf or two if you're really feeling adventurous.
At least that's what I thought until we went out to find a desk. I wanted white to match the bed going in the "office"/spare, spare bedroom. We couldn't find a white desk that wasn't $400 or made for a 10 year old girl. Neither was acceptable, especially to Darrin. So I decided to cave and go with black. We're doing a mix of black and white furniture in our bedroom so I figured it wouldn't look too bad extending to another room of the house. We looked a several desks and I realized that each of us had very different views on what we were looking for. After a day (and about 10 stores) we had narrowed it down to two choices, one I liked and one he liked. In the end, his pick ended up winning. He did tell me I could pick out the chair though. I want an accent chair NOT a desk chair so I want something unique looking - which is kind of hard to find.
Anyway, we buy the desk and carry all 300 pounds of it into the garage. We were going to wait until the carpet was laid to assemble it.
On Monday after the carpet was down we decided to build our first piece of new furniture. Terry, our wonderful handyman, was over painting and doing some other work around the house and warned me that this was going to be a very long project. I figured he was nuts and that I could have this baby knocked out in under two hours (cue very VERY loud laughter!). Two days would have been a more realistic goal.
The issues began before the desk was even out of the box. Darrin had laid the box down upside down. I had already started to open it before I realized this. I felt like I was digging for buried treasure as I searched for the instructions and hardware package. Plus I wasted a good 15 minutes!!
I put the first three pieces together in a very fast 30 minutes, only to realize that they seemed a bit uneven. I took them apart and did it again. Same results. At this point I decided that maybe they would be this way until more of the pieces were added (Note to self: Like multiple choice tests, it's best to go with your first instinct when building something - if something is crooked and it shouldn't be it WILL NOT fix itself the more pieces you add to it). So anyways, I kept building. After a few more steps (did I mention there are 29 steps to assembling this desk?) the instructions told me that I had to measure 1 1/4 inches to nail in a peg. I've built a lot of things in my 28 years and never once have I needed a tape measure. That's why I buy the furniture instead of building it from scratch.
After a tape measure and hammer got involved (and another 45 minutes passed) it was time to start putting the tops (yes tops, multiple) on. That was a two-person job to say the least. We're over two hours in at this point and still have about 10 steps left. I was starting to get frustrated. All that was left at this point was the drawers and the door. We moved the desk into place and I stepped back to admire my work. That crooked piece from before was STILL crooked. In fact, it looked worse. So much for my genius idea that it would fix itself. Although for the life of me I still can't figure out what I did wrong.
I needed a break (and I was super excited to try KP's chicken recipe - see previous post - which was beyond amazing by the way) so I decided to call it a day. I thought maybe once the door was on and drawer in it would be fine.
I went back today and got the door on - crooked spot not fixed. Then I started on the drawers. After 5 minutes of comparing numbers on screws to the number on the instructions I realized that I was missing screws. Second Note to Self: NEVER throw away a box until whatever you building is finished. Being the great guy that Darrin is, he dug through the trash, but we still couldn't find the right part.
I was so nervous about the fact that the desk looked crooked I just wanted to get the drawer built and see if that fixed anything. Cue our latest trip to Lowes. And cue the fact that they don't sell #10 1/2 inch screws at Lowes. I finally threw up my hands and asked Darrin if we could please return this cursed piece of furniture and pick out something else.
I called Office Max and they told me I could return it - just to disassemble as much as I could and bring it back. I didn't even need the box! Pretty sure that's my favorite thing about the desk - the fact that it can go back!!! So now we're back to square one. Tomorrow I plan on taking it apart and returning it and hopefully having a beautiful, straight desk by this weekend.
At least I'm pretty much an expert on putting things together - which is good because all six pieces of the bedroom suite we're getting in two weeks needs to be assembled!!! If those of you another part of the country here very loud screams next Sunday you'll know it's me trying to get an wardrobe or two built!
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