Spring is here, and with that the obligation to do things outside and make property look acceptable to judging neighbors.
A few months back, I purchased a home in a family-friendly neighborhood. My previous home fronted a four-lane state highway and was a block away from the local hospital. This passed for landscape design:
It set the perfect backdrop for the time my neighbor’s daughter decided to pour gasoline onto my driveway.
But now I must keep up with the Jones’ or the Smith’s or whatever their names may be, I’m not very neighborly. So I ordered wicker porch chairs from Target. This is how they arrived:
This does not look like a chair.
And this is how my amazing how-to on How To Put Together Porch Furniture came into being.
Step 1. Open box and dump out all the parts. Weep.
Step 2: Look for the directions.
“Helloooooooo??”
Step 3. After much kicking of empty box, locate a miniscule box with the words “Important: don’t throw away” under a heap of chair parts.
Now, we’re cooking.
Step 4. Read step 1 of the directions:
*click to enlarge*
Step 5. Ask the directions if they are fucking with you.
*click to enlarge*
Step 6. Stare with envy at neighbor across the street who seems perfectly content sitting in a folding chair on his front porch.
Step 7. Attempt to stick pieces together into a chair-like shape.
I believe this is the bottom or at least it is now.
Step 8. Make a pact with God.
Dear God,
If you help me figure this out, I will stop taking your name in vain while I assemble this clusterfuck of a chair.
Amen,
TOHTB
Step 9. Question the meaning of life when no help is provided. Go inside an open a bottle of wine.
Soon it will no longer matter what the chair looks like.
Step 10. Figure now is the perfect time to let Target know what you think if its product.
Step 11. Dicker around some more and eventually get to this somehow.
I am a fucking chair genius!
Step 12: Revel in your amazingness and then notice the second box.
For fuck’s sake.
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Reblogged this on Speaker7 and commented:
Just like the work of another carpenter I know, I think my craftsmanship is almost god-like. Check it out on The Official How To Blog.
Hey Speaker 7 – voted for you for the Indie Chicks Badass Blog Award – good luck!
Wow! Thank you. I would be a definite shoo-in if it was the Indie Chicks Flab-ass Award.
Ha! 🙂
Aw, hilarious! …so, when are you tackling the second one?? 😉
Already done. I feel extremely confident…until I have to put together that wicker table I ordered.
This is why I married a ‘guy’s guy.’ He may not be refined, but he can put shit together. And kill bugs.
He is a keeper.
Hilarious! I had to put together a bbq grill the other day. It was an 8 beer project and my 4 year old can now use sonofabitch in proper context, but that baby is up and cooking!
I think all home projects should have an alcohol rating. This patio table will take 4 glasses of wine.
My husband puts together most of our stuff, but he never reads directions and there are always a few parts left. “They just give you extra parts” he says. I’m not sure I believe him. One of these days I’m going to fall on my butt I just know it.
That’s funny!
Oh, I have a handful of screws and screw covers that I’m sure are necessary but I’m not going to worry about it.
‘some assembly required’ is the biggest lie going.
For sure. I order a chair. I want it to look like one. If I’m paying for pieces than I should be charged accordingly.
Thanks for the laugh this morning, ha. This rang especially and hilariously true to me:
“Spring is here, and with that the obligation to do things outside and make property look acceptable to judging neighbors.”
It will not be an easy summer. Last year, I mowed the lawn 3x.
I’m impressed with your toolbelt gene. Mine is a bit deficient. When I last tried to assemble something, a small table from Pottery Barn, it first came out looking a lot like Guernica.
But then it could be hung in an art gallery.
Yes, the paint by numbers gallery.
hehehe….was that a second chair?
Yes…*huge sigh*….goddammit.
I am too old for put-it-together-yourself furniture. And too poor to buy anything else. I sit on the floor a lot.
You are a wise one.
Just Brilliant. Been there a time or two, especially asking asking the directions, WTF? And also a bottle of booze is inevitably involved.
The directions are meant to be as nonsenical as possible.
Hahaha don’t throw stuff at me through your computer, but I love putting furniture together!! Honestly, I wish I could have a job at IKEA just assembling shit. But I’m glad you got it together with the help of wine and swear words.
Do they have jobs at IKEA for assembling furniture? I thought the lack of assemblage is why I’m always having to put together any piece of furniture I purchase.
My bargaining with God goes something like, “I swear to you that if you don’t help me I’ll eat communion wafers for breakfast and drink wine before it has been blessed.”
You are a tough negotiator.
I can relate so much! I’m usually the patient one who tries to figure it out but I hate reading directions. 🙂
It’s hard when the directions seem like they have been written in Dothraki.
I always tighten everything too much. There is always one part that has a screw coming thru the other side.
The scotch bottle is never far from whatever I am putting together.
I have the opposite problem. The chair appears to be a bit wobbly.
Oh, they are still wobbly…just with a screw poking through. 😉
This was freaking HILARIOUS. I had to use all-caps because I laughed so loud I woke up my husband. I died at the photo of the neighbor “how’s that chair coming?”
I swear he was taunting me with his folding chair.
This is so true – and so funny! 🙂
It is bitterly true. I just received my porch table in pieces.
I bought two kitchen chairs from Ikea over a year ago. I put the first one together but still haven’t opened the second box.
You really only need one chair. If someone needs a second chair, you can direct them to the box.
bwaaaaaahaaaaaa haaaaaa! Love it!!
—
Meri Jaan
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I can laugh at it now, but when I was putting together that chair, I was very close to heaving the parts into the street.
I can totally understand!
Would it work if you just did Step 1 and then skipped straight to Step 9? Because once I start weeping at flat-packed porch furniture I find it very difficult to stop.
It’s not a perfect system, I grant you that.
Hmm. I might just get my minions to erect my porch furniture while I drink the wine and cry.
Great article! I’ve struggled with patio furniture more than once, as well as other pieces equally as difficult to get put together!