Sorta Small Jobs

Quick question: does it make me a sick freak that I sorta like putting together prefab furniture?

And I say ‘sorta like’ because the variables have to be right. Obviously, not every piece of ‘some assembly required’ furniture is created equally. Some need multiple workers, which is annoying. Some come with instructions where the diagrams look to be drawn by someone who suffers from a rare eye disease that deprives them of seeing in three dimensions. And sometimes you arrive at a point where what you’re asked to do makes zero sense. (I put together a cabinet once that couldn’t be completed without one builder being closed inside the tight space.)

But occasionally you get that perfect specimen: a well-made, simple piece with a nicely illustrated and clearly written instruction booklet. It’s amazing, right? Like doing a fun puzzle.

I put together one such thing recently. Or so I thought at first. It was a bed frame, and the process of assembling it provided much satisfaction. It began with the inevitable mess that makes you think, How is that possibly going to become anything other than a pile of boards? But within the first few steps, the frame pleasingly took shape, and while I had anticipated getting started myself before eventually asking someone to help, I soon found myself on the precipice of completion.

Sure, the antepenultimate step required a bit more Allen-wrenching than I would’ve liked, especially given the angle (you couldn’t turn it all the way, meaning you had to take the tool out and re-insert for another quarter- or half-turn), but I got through it. And finally, I had just one thing to do: add the slats.

And here, things took a turn.

You see, there were roughly one million of them (read: maybe twenty) going down the frame, and each of them required a small screw on both sides to hold it in place, which, if you’re keeping count, would mean applying two-million (forty) screws. The instruction booklet, of course, assured me this could be completed with a basic, manual screwdriver. Which was true. It’s also true that you can heat up a bowl of rigatoni for dinner with an electric kettle and an espresso mug, putting each individual noodle into the vessel and then pouring hot water over it until it’s cooked before moving on to the next.

By which I mean: just because something is possible doesn’t mean it’s efficient or even viable.

And yet, to haul out the power drill seemed excessive (not to mention potentially damaging; after all, these were little screws and soft wood).

So, what did I do?

I tapped out, allowing my spouse to finish the project from here.

BUT! If I had something like this Fanttik S1 Pro Cordless Electric Screwdriver, it would’ve been ideal. Because that’s really what it’s good for: those jobs that are not so big that they require a power drill, but nor so small that they can be easily completed with a few turns of the wrist.

At any rate, the frame is done, the bed is complete, and all that remains of the toil is the memory. And, also, a garage full of cardboard and styrofoam packaging.