Everyone feels accomplished when then finish something on their own. IKEA is well known for self-assembly. They provide the pieces and allow you to be your own hero by assembling the furniture yourself. How thoughtful of them, right? For people who aren't aware of the wonderful creation that is IKEA, you're in for a treat. There is nothing more satisfying that successfully building an IKEA piece. Here are the 11 stages that you experience when buying and assembling anything from IKEA.
1. The Idea
You have a desire for some change in your home but you can't quite put your finger on what that change might be. After watching all those design shows on HGTV, you have come to the conclusion that you need a new furniture piece to change the vibe of one of your rooms. What better place to shop than IKEA, right?2. The Showroom
After parking, you make your way up the escalator to a maze of elegantly designed rooms. Each one looks like it came straight out of a home furnishing magazine. You are mesmerized by the numerous options that you can choose from. This place makes you feel like anyone can design a room with style. You spot the piece that you want in one of the rooms and begin brainstorming how you want it to look.
3. The Customizing Computer
By now, you have seen different ways that your piece can be incorporated into your home so you are feeling a little ambitious. You spot a computer that allows you to customize your piece to have every little accessory that you need. You go to town on all of the necessities: shoe rack, fancy wire baskets, lights that turn on when you open the door. You then grab a little book that shows you every item that is needed to make your custom piece possible.
4. The Self-Serve Warehouse
Time to grab all of the parts needed to assemble your piece. Down another escalator is a giant warehouse with rows and rows of boxes that have different parts to different pieces. Where do you even start? Lucky for you, the book provides you with the SKU numbers of every item. Even more convenient, there is a computer that allows you to look up where each item is located. What you didn't previously know is that you'll be walking all over this warehouse looking for each piece. Good luck.
5. The Check Out and Loading
After the scavenger hunt all around the store, you finally have your pieces. As you approach the check out, you see a sign that says "Check out is faster when all of the bar codes face the same way." You then look down and notice that none of them are facing the same way....great. Checking out didn't take took long but now you have to put all of your boxes in your vehicle. At first, you try to load everything yourself, but after five minutes of struggling, a nice worker comes over and helps. Sparing yourself further embarrassment, you get in the car and tip them when they finish.
6. The Package Opening
Like a gift on Christmas morning, you rip open all of your packages to get started. Looking at your floor, you now have a ton of cardboard and bubble wrap everywhere...whoops. You have to regain your composure to focus on getting started.
7. The Hopeful Beginning
IKEA being a Swedish company, their instruction manuals are comprised of a bunch of pictures with a happy man on them. This sets a light-hearted tone for you because if the man is happy assembling his piece, then why can't you be? Assembling this will be a piece of cake!
8. The Realization
You start to lose your happy motivation as you are reassembling one step of the piece for the third time because the screws that came with the piece just broke. The cloud of doubt that has been creeping up on you as you were building won't go away anymore. You start to think that this may be a lot harder to build than you initially thought. It's almost like the happy Swedish man in the instructions is smiling at your failure now. That's it......it's on.
9. The Halfway Mark....Oh Wait
By now, hours have passed and you feel as if you are almost halfway done with construction. There is a sense of pride that flushes over you as you look at what you have accomplished so far. You reach behind you to pat yourself on the back when you notice that you are only on step 5 of 27. The Swedish man is almost laughing at you at this point.
10. The WTF Moment
The moment during assembly where you are ready to pick up the piece and throw it against the wall. Everything has been leading up to this point and by now you have HAD it. This is the point in construction where you are about to lose your sanity from built up frustration. You just spent half an hour on those door hinges and now as they close, you notice that one is hanging slightly lower than the other. I DON'T THINK SO.
11. The Tears of Hatred/Joy
Finally....your masterpiece is finished. You have to step back and cry because of all the blood, sweat, and tears that were poured into creating this. You just fought a battle against the Swedes and won. Now is the time to lay down and recover.
