Sweat Equity

It's 93˚ here in the Berkshires, with humidity even higher than that! We've got every fan in the house going and wheel the dehumidifier from the front room during the day to the bedroom at night. We spent Friday and Saturday sweating over putting together a closet system for James from Ikea—"assembly required." The instructions are all in pictographs. Apparently Swedish people put together furniture in the nude. James and I were clothed, I assure you. No need to imagine that picture. (Note how they assume you will need to call them because the printed instructions will confuse you. We chose to spend 2 days figuring it out ourselves rather than call…)

So it took us 2 days to put together something that looks so simple when it's up. You'd never think it required so much hard labor! But then, when you have to put each piece up twice before you get it right, and when you have to take everything apart in order to adjust one thing, since it's all connected to each other, and when you have Dianne the Dyslexic (not really, but I seem to have a persistent upside-down relation to spatial relations) assembling the drawers only to discover that the large drawer unit that we'd already put up and taken down and put up again was in UPSIDE-DOWN and had to be taken back out and flipped over and reinstalled, requiring about half a dozen other parts to be loosened and readjusted and tightened again, meaning I had to get back down on the floor with my arm crammed under the cabinet and squinch up my eyes up to try to see the little screw holes and get the f***in' Allen wrench in and around and in and around and in and around… I remember my father once saying that certain things in repair or construction work only respond to cussing. Apparently Ikea things only respond to Swedish cuss words, of which we know none.

So after 2 days, the closet is up and James has somewhere to put his clothes instead of in the guest room. (Our 1955 ranch house has only one small closet in the master bedroom, hardly big enough for my stuff let alone James's too, and he's a regular clothes horse!) It looks elegantly industrial and holds clothes masterfully. And if any of you decides to purchase a Stolmen storage system from Ikea, let us know and we'll tell you all the things NOT to do while installing it.