Better with his hands

I am the last person you would describe as a handyman.

Ok, Stephen Hawking.

I am the 2nd last person you would describe as a handyman.

I wouldn't really know where to begin with building a wardrobe. Or a door. I couldn't tell you the best type of wood to use to create a lightweight but sturdy shelf. When presented with hammer and nails, I would most likely recite a series of puns about hammers and nails, but at the risk of sounding like a tool I will refrain. I most likely would hit my own thumb in the process of hammering, and then if I was especially angry, probably someone else's thumb. Actually that's not true, I would rather hit myself than anyone else, and given that sounds worryingly masochistic I think we should just move right along.

Totally nailed that introduction.

I mention all this because I am in the process of putting together some Ikea furniture. For my birthday my parents offered to buy me a new desk. I would like to point out that my birthday's in January, but we've all been busy. But in what I am now dubbing the year of change, as I have changed jobs, long term goals, and budgets, I am also redesigning my room a little. So! I've a new desk, a new set of drawers, and two cable boxes to organise the leads from the myriad of electronic devices I have surrounded myself with to assist with the early onset of radiation induced evolution and thereby bring about a new plane of existence for all humanity, or possibly just brain cancer.

A cable box for the record is a generic plastic box with a few holes pocked in that the instructions tell you to put your cables in. They could have painted it red and written "Cable Box" on it to drive the point home further but they're actually pretty useful. They don't in any way actually make your cables easier to sort but they do hide the ungodly mess from beyond the veil that your cables become, and with the application of a few rubber bands they're behaving themselves pretty well.

The desk isn't getting delivered till tomorrow as it was too big to fit in the car, but I did start assembling the drawers (as in typical Ikea style they come in pieces - for your convenience) before bedtime and the need to get this blog in on schedule necessitated a break in their construction. The last time I assembled anything was when I put my tv stand together (which was also a birthday present from my parents a few years back. They're good that way). That time I ran into a few problems.

The instructions were easy enough to understand. Put screw A into slot A. What an easy to understand system! Much better than those convoluted instructions you sometimes see.

Only problem was there was no slot A.

After a frantic search I eventually discovered a slot 1, and further investigation helpfully showed that while the instruction writers had decided to use an easy to understand letter system, the carpenters responsible for cutting and labelling the pieces had decided to use an easy to understand number system. On the whole I think a couple of emails, perhaps a morning tea with scones to meet the two different departments, a work social outing, maybe a movie, or just something to indicate that the other department EXISTED and maybe they should be talking to each other might have helped things considerably.

Construction continued without otherwise presenting an issue, until the final step when I was required to add a small piece of wood to the back of the unit to cover up those unsightly cable holes. The wood was of nice quality, durable, had a nice silver lacquer and just plain didn't fit where it was supposed to go. I spent about a half an hour playing with it, taking measurements, trying to gently force it into place, trying to roughly force it into place and then finally whistling nonchalantly before leaping on it and trying to take it by surprise. Nothing worked.

Eventually - after realising that by covering up those unsightly cable holes it would become immensely difficult to actually thread cables through them - I simply threw the nice quality durable silver lacquered piece of wood in the bin and haven't had another problem since.

As such I was surprised and alarmed to discover that Ikea's directions were simple, efficient and above all actually bore relevance to what you had to do to assemble the unit. So while they're not quite done I have no worries with assuming that it will be easy to finish tomorrow and will be able to have my new desk in place shortly after.

On the whole I've found it quite satisfying. Maybe there is something to this handyman stuff after all. Of course, since I'm in the top 10 list of people who'd be the last you'd call a handyman, my general lack of technical skill probably gets in the way.

But who cares. I have a new desk.