Mama Mia! It's IKEA!
Avoid A PreFab Assembly Nightmare
Yo, What’s up? This is Hal in Philly with another daunting episode of Easy When You Know Hal,
I recently asked my Facebook friends what topic they might like fro me to tackle on Easy When You Know Hal. I always tell people, if I don’t know an answer, I will always do my best to find it for you. So this episode is a perfect example of that.
My friend Steve Schalchlin, who I recently spoke to on my other podcast , Tales of the Road Warriors, suggested I talk about how to assemble pre-fabricated furniture so it doesn’t fall apart.
Well, it just so happens that I have recently experienced a little bit of both. I had a piece of IKEA furniture completely come apart on me. Truth be told, it was one of their cheapest units and I moved about 4 times since I bought it. It just got picked up, jostled around in transit and slammed down on arrival a few too many times. I think i got the most out of that bookcase, cabinet thing I could have hoped for. Besides, it was a tall unit, over 6 feet and supported by four wobbly blocks for legs. It started out as a lost cause.
I replaced it a few months ago with a BRIMNES black cabinet with doors, 30 3/4” x 37 3/8 " $95.00
And this time I did things a little bit differently. First step, I left it in my car for a day. It was really heavy, and I was too tired after shopping at IKEA, and then hauling it into my cart an then schlepping it from the cart into the back seat of my car, I just couldn’t deal with it. So, I stopped for a turkey hoagie on the way home to take with me, left the new cabinet in the back seat and went inside to eat and watch a movie on Netflix. Now, keep in mind… this is all part of the process. You can’t put IKEA furniture together if you’re not in a total “I’m gonna put this fricking thing together and I’m gonna get it right this time!” frame of mind.
Next, I decided I’ll do it in the evening after a nap. I just needed a nap.
Nope. Still not ready.
But the next morning, I was ready. And I got a sign from God that it was time, because - I was all psyched up to drag it into the house, when lo and behold, my roommate was just leaving at the same time. He was heading for his car and I said, “Hey Mike,… Can you help me carry this box into the house before you leave?” Major back pain averted!
I leaned it against the wall and stared at it for a few minutes. Contemplated starting on it another few minutes. Nah, I needed another cup of coffee after the whole bringing it in the house ordeal.
Finally, I dragged it into my room and opened the box. Started pulling the pieces out one by one, then there were a couple of plastic bags with screws and assorted hardware. I was getting more concerned by the minute that this might be more difficult than I anticipated. Finally, I pulled out and unfolded instructions. There were no words. There was no text instructions. It was all illustrations with numbers and arrows and symbols like that circle with the slash though it. Oh, man. This was going to be truly daunting. It suddenly dawned on me how long it had been since I last put assembled a piece of IKEA furniture and I didn’t remember it being a great experience then, either.
But then it hit me. There was one difference between now and the last time I assembled furniture from IKEA… Youtube. I mean, yeah, there was Youtube then, but the whole “How-To” video thing was just beginning. So, I played a hunch.
I pulled out my phone, opened the Youtube app and searched for the name of the specific unit I just bought. BRIMNES cabinet, IKEA. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was actually a video of a guy named Kevin, being videotaped by his wife, Tami (who you can hear occasionally off-camera) putting this exact same cabinet together from scratch. And I did something else I never would have done before, too. The video was 26 minutes long, so I put everything down, pulled up youtube on my TV and sat and watched the whole thing all the way through before I started.
And then I began. I took everything out and laid out all of components in an organized fashion on the floor. And I went through the whole process step by step, pausing the video, while I completed one step before moving on to the next.
Now there was one step where Kevin wasn’t sure which way these little latch-things were supposed to face, and I remembered that, during my first viewing of the video, he had to undo two of them because they were facing the wrong way. So, guess what? That didn’t happen to me. I jumped to the part in the video where he had to redo it, and learned from HIS mistake and got it right. So, I probably saved myself about 10 or 15 minutes of assembly time, by not having to screw the latches in the wrong way, then having to take them off, turn them around and put them back on again.
Also, you can tell Kevin was a bit of a handyman, so he offered some good tips along the way. And I ended up with a pretty sturdy little cabinet, where I was now able to hide a lot of little things that were cluttering up my room. I took the old unit aboard and set it outside where it disappeared in a matter of minutes. I guess somebody had use for the wood.
BTW - if you need a little cabinet it’s not very pretty, but if you prefer function over fashion, I would actually recommend this little cabinet. It has two shelves plus the floor of the unit makes three. Again, it’s called the BRIMNES and comes in black or white.
Hey, stop by the website for the show notes at Spreaker.com/halinphilly. Leave a comment or send me an email to: [email protected] with any questions or suggestions!
www.halinphilly.com
[email protected]
Here's a link to Tami and Kevin's video where they assemble the BRIMNES cabinet, but no matter what you buy, if it’s prefab furniture, make YouTube your first stop and search for the specific name of the unit you bought. There may very well be a video tutorial for your particular item. Like I said, if I don’t have the answers, I can help you find them. Because it’s Easy When You Know Hal.
Yo, What’s up? This is Hal in Philly with another daunting episode of Easy When You Know Hal,
I recently asked my Facebook friends what topic they might like fro me to tackle on Easy When You Know Hal. I always tell people, if I don’t know an answer, I will always do my best to find it for you. So this episode is a perfect example of that.
My friend Steve Schalchlin, who I recently spoke to on my other podcast , Tales of the Road Warriors, suggested I talk about how to assemble pre-fabricated furniture so it doesn’t fall apart.
Well, it just so happens that I have recently experienced a little bit of both. I had a piece of IKEA furniture completely come apart on me. Truth be told, it was one of their cheapest units and I moved about 4 times since I bought it. It just got picked up, jostled around in transit and slammed down on arrival a few too many times. I think i got the most out of that bookcase, cabinet thing I could have hoped for. Besides, it was a tall unit, over 6 feet and supported by four wobbly blocks for legs. It started out as a lost cause.
I replaced it a few months ago with a BRIMNES black cabinet with doors, 30 3/4” x 37 3/8 " $95.00
And this time I did things a little bit differently. First step, I left it in my car for a day. It was really heavy, and I was too tired after shopping at IKEA, and then hauling it into my cart an then schlepping it from the cart into the back seat of my car, I just couldn’t deal with it. So, I stopped for a turkey hoagie on the way home to take with me, left the new cabinet in the back seat and went inside to eat and watch a movie on Netflix. Now, keep in mind… this is all part of the process. You can’t put IKEA furniture together if you’re not in a total “I’m gonna put this fricking thing together and I’m gonna get it right this time!” frame of mind.
Next, I decided I’ll do it in the evening after a nap. I just needed a nap.
Nope. Still not ready.
But the next morning, I was ready. And I got a sign from God that it was time, because - I was all psyched up to drag it into the house, when lo and behold, my roommate was just leaving at the same time. He was heading for his car and I said, “Hey Mike,… Can you help me carry this box into the house before you leave?” Major back pain averted!
I leaned it against the wall and stared at it for a few minutes. Contemplated starting on it another few minutes. Nah, I needed another cup of coffee after the whole bringing it in the house ordeal.
Finally, I dragged it into my room and opened the box. Started pulling the pieces out one by one, then there were a couple of plastic bags with screws and assorted hardware. I was getting more concerned by the minute that this might be more difficult than I anticipated. Finally, I pulled out and unfolded instructions. There were no words. There was no text instructions. It was all illustrations with numbers and arrows and symbols like that circle with the slash though it. Oh, man. This was going to be truly daunting. It suddenly dawned on me how long it had been since I last put assembled a piece of IKEA furniture and I didn’t remember it being a great experience then, either.
But then it hit me. There was one difference between now and the last time I assembled furniture from IKEA… Youtube. I mean, yeah, there was Youtube then, but the whole “How-To” video thing was just beginning. So, I played a hunch.
I pulled out my phone, opened the Youtube app and searched for the name of the specific unit I just bought. BRIMNES cabinet, IKEA. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was actually a video of a guy named Kevin, being videotaped by his wife, Tami (who you can hear occasionally off-camera) putting this exact same cabinet together from scratch. And I did something else I never would have done before, too. The video was 26 minutes long, so I put everything down, pulled up youtube on my TV and sat and watched the whole thing all the way through before I started.
And then I began. I took everything out and laid out all of components in an organized fashion on the floor. And I went through the whole process step by step, pausing the video, while I completed one step before moving on to the next.
Now there was one step where Kevin wasn’t sure which way these little latch-things were supposed to face, and I remembered that, during my first viewing of the video, he had to undo two of them because they were facing the wrong way. So, guess what? That didn’t happen to me. I jumped to the part in the video where he had to redo it, and learned from HIS mistake and got it right. So, I probably saved myself about 10 or 15 minutes of assembly time, by not having to screw the latches in the wrong way, then having to take them off, turn them around and put them back on again.
Also, you can tell Kevin was a bit of a handyman, so he offered some good tips along the way. And I ended up with a pretty sturdy little cabinet, where I was now able to hide a lot of little things that were cluttering up my room. I took the old unit aboard and set it outside where it disappeared in a matter of minutes. I guess somebody had use for the wood.
BTW - if you need a little cabinet it’s not very pretty, but if you prefer function over fashion, I would actually recommend this little cabinet. It has two shelves plus the floor of the unit makes three. Again, it’s called the BRIMNES and comes in black or white.
Hey, stop by the website for the show notes at Spreaker.com/halinphilly. Leave a comment or send me an email to: [email protected] with any questions or suggestions!
www.halinphilly.com
[email protected]
Here's a link to Tami and Kevin's video where they assemble the BRIMNES cabinet, but no matter what you buy, if it’s prefab furniture, make YouTube your first stop and search for the specific name of the unit you bought. There may very well be a video tutorial for your particular item. Like I said, if I don’t have the answers, I can help you find them. Because it’s Easy When You Know Hal.
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