Yes, I CAN do it!

I learned today that large pieces of furniture should be assembled with a buddy. I spent part of my morning putting together a buffet that we had purchased recently. The top and bottom of it went on easily enough, but then it came time to put on the sides. I got one side on just fine and merrily moved ahead with putting on the other side. Figuring I was ready for the next segment I glanced at the directions to see what needed to go on next and realized that I had leaped ahead too quickly. There were three other slender pieces extended the length of the buffet that needed to be attached to one side so that everything could just slip easily into the other side all at once. Unfortunately for me, I had also put the thing together so it was lying on its front rather than its back. Bad news again for me because I spent a cross ten minutes trying to get all of the little pegs and bolts to line up in their respective holes while also trying to keep the slender pieces from falling out of their peg holes on the far end. You see, the back part of the buffet is taller than the front part because it also supports a narrow shelf (one of those slender long pieces). There I was, sitting on my bum and trying to balance skinny shelf pieces on my knees and simultaneously slip everything into the right holes. One set of pegs would go in alright, while another set would slip away from me. ARGH. Eventually I won, however. IKEA does a wonderful job engineering furniture that can be put together without power tools (although a power drill sure speeds things up!) that looks nice and is reasonably sturdy. The directions could use a little improving though. I rewarded my success by getting myself three Lindor chocolate balls at the grocery store this afternoon: dark chocolate, hazelnut, and hazelnut butter. Mmmm.