IKEA

A new desk seemed a very good idea, especially as it had attached shelves and was just the right size to replace the cluttered arrangement in my study.  And it was offered to me free via freecycle so I brought it home. I knew about IKEA and their construction system of little bolts tightened with an allen key. This was going to be a piece of cake.

The previous owner had disassembled it carefully and gave me all the bolts in a neatly sealed bag. He even took some photos of him disassembling it to help me as I came to put it back together.

Now unfortunately there was a delay between collecting said item of Ikea furniture in pieces and the time when I could put it together due to the late collection of a filing cabinet that now belongs in another place.

Said filing cabinet now collected I decided it was time to do the grand assembly and reorder the study. However, during the delay I had cleaned out my email inbox and many old files from freecycle had been deleted. (If you sign up to freecycle then you will get many dozens of emails a day and it is necessary to delete the backlog regularly to keep your computer hard drive from getting clogged.)  And to my horror I found all the photos of the dissasembly process and even the picture of it complete had been lost in the purge.

So what was to have been a simple construction became a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle as I had to work out from first principles what was likely to go where and which bolts to use in which place.

The assembly took much longer than planned but now is thankfully complete. However I have three bolts left over and I cannot see any vacant holes where they might fit. This is indeed a puzzle! Ikea wins.

Of course this whole exercise could be said to be a diversionary activity as I have a sermon to write!