The Furniture Gods are laughing hard

Francis W. Porretto’s curmudgeon strength is not enough when it comes to customer-assembled furniture:

Customer-assembled furniture has destroyed more domestic evenings than toddler soccer, medical insurance options, and menstruation combined. IKEA, Bush, Sauder, O’Sullivan, Ameriwood, and their less well known competitors are clearly the agents of Satan. One hopes that their finances have received the attention of the Department of Homeland Security. A Middle Eastern connection wouldn’t surprise your Curmudgeon one little bit.

Still, it’s amazing how powerful the urge to save a few bucks can be. Especially when combined with the desire to have what one wants right on the spot. The fatal piece was a simple writing desk, basically a flat horizontal surface with four legs. There it stood in the showroom: sturdy, attractive, and about $200 less than a factory-built unit of the same sort. And it was available for immediate sale.

How hard could it be? your Curmudgeon said to himself. Or was it a demonic voice whispering to him? He can no longer be sure.

When unpacked, the kit proved to contain over 200 parts. Big parts, little parts, plain parts, mystery parts, parts labeled and unlabeled. Wood, steel, plastic and rubber. Seven different kinds of fasteners. A little bottle of glue. “Simple Assembly!” proclaimed the instructions. Those were their last words.

Four man-hours went into that “simple assembly.” Four man-hours, plus all the skin off your Curmudgeon’s palms, elbows, and knees. What emerged bears only a passing resemblance to the model in the showroom. Perhaps it will support the weight of an LCD monitor and keyboard, but your Curmudgeon isn’t sure he wants to test it.

I almost fell off my dictator throne after reading his lament. I’ve been there many times. My wife has no problems buying unassembled things since she has complete faith in my ability to put it together. For the record, I do a bang up job assembling things. But inside my mystical head, I am screaming enough obscenities to burn the Vatican down. Luckily the shockingly efficient side of me wins out and I procede to assembly. Afterwards, I am literally worn out. Not by the assembly. But by keeping the inner dictator in check doing the assembly process. Totally not joyful.

And no matter how simple looking the furniture, get ready to spend at least two and a half hours. 30 minutes to unpack all the mess and become depressed and two hours assembly and mental depressurization.

[zing! to Francis W. Porretto]

3 Responses to “The Furniture Gods are laughing hard”

1. Francis W. Porretto says:

   August 12, 2005 at 5:35 am

   Glad you got a giggle out of it, T-Steel. The truly hellacious part is, I’m by no means a virgin in this matter of customer-assembled furniture. I’ve built twelve bookcases, three dressers, four desks, a stereo cabinet, and assorted other pieces, and after every one, I’ve said to myself: NEVER AGAIN. Time goes by, and the C.S.O. gets a notion about something we “need” — you know how wives wield the word “need” like a bludgeon? — and I’m off to the races again.

   Jeez, my hands hurt.
2. Jerry McClellan says:

   August 13, 2005 at 8:03 pm

   Amen!
3. Jim says:

   January 2, 2006 at 1:51 pm

   I have worked for a couple of those RTA companies you mention. I am amazed at how much product we sell. I can also tell you everytime we add the slightest bit of cost to save significant assembly time, the consumer will not pay the premium. What work largely in our favor is that once the product is out of the box it is easier to go ahead and assemble the unit than it would ever be to get it back in the box to return to the store.