Ikea Nightmare

The Offending Piece

On Saturday we got up and at'em in record time for the Georges.  We got to Ikea before 11:00!  Seriously.  I even showered.  We went for some hang-y things for the kitchen and frames.  We came out with plants, frames, hang-y things for the kitchen and hang-y hooky things for the garage and a dresser.  Typical Ikea trip.  I mean it is amazing how the Ikeans (?) can so easily convince you that your life would be simplified by some snap-together three part piece of Swedish ingenuity.  

The dresser.  Jack hasn't had a dresser since way before we got married.  He needs one.  We got this one for 49 euro!  It was originally 250 euro.  SCORE.  And now we are part of the Ikea Family Plan.  Really. That sounds like we have joined forces to produce tall, blond, robust Swedish children who sit in saunas and design flat pack living solutions for small spaces.  We should have bought two dressers (Jack adds, "I don't know about two.").  

I started to put together the dresser.  This was the biggest and most complex thing I had ever constructed from Ikea.  I was all set to do it.  I even read (looked at the pictures) the directions through once.  I even read the part that said to check all the bolts and stuff to make sure they were all there.  Do you see where this is going?  

I looked at the bag of TONS of little dowels and screws and stuff and thought:

Wow.  Does anyone ever go through all of that?  And what happens if something is missing?  Do you call the company?  Would the Italians understand me?  If they did would they do something or just yell something like this is Naples, of course we haven't got the right number of pieces!? Nah.  This is all packed by machine.  They have to have all the parts in there.  ---Oh, there is a hole in this bag.

*All of this thinking happened in a fleeting moment.  But it happened.

NOW you know where this is going.  

Skip to Jack taking over the construction because Baby needed Mama.  

In total we were missing: 

2 little dowels

3 wood screws

1 plastic bolt for a drawer

and 

1 big bolt to fasten the leg

I don't know what he did about the rest, but after a failed attempt to match the bolt at the NEX Jack drove a huge wood screw through the leg.  Jury-rigged.  And the LONGEST construction time ever!  It spanned two days.

Jack said after releasing a number of NOT blog friendly expletives.  'Well.  It was 80% off because it was missing 20%.'

But it is built and awaiting his clothes and my love affair with Ikea has soured, a little.