The other day I had the pleasure of helping my flat mate, Will, put together his flat pack shelf which had been in his room since September. I decided to document our progress because in simple terms, we’re a bit crap at flat-pack stuff. Actually, Will is bit crap with flat pack stuff. He can’t follow instructions properly, he can’t screw, but he does everything with such wonderful energy and charisma that you can’t help but feel he knows what he’s doing!
The box of goodies
So here we see the box of goodies, slightly dishevelled in our excitement, but fear not, we lost no parts!! Infact for some reason we had a few spare, so expect photo’s of a collapsed shelf in the near future!
So stage 1, build the frame.
Will attempts stage one
Will begins inserting the wooden knobs into the outer frame. Unfortunately, Will sticks together the wrong bits of wood in stage one, but Matt is too slow to catch his shameful schoolboy error.
Will messes up stage one
Following Will’s cock-up, we finally complete stage one, the frame. (Note the wooden spoon on the floor. A very useful alternative to a mallet)
Stage one complete
So with stage one complete we can now attach the back to the unit. This requires screwing and provides me and Will with the perfect opportunity to test out those tiny screwdrivers I won in a christmas cracker. In what could be considered as a scary coincidence, Will also produces a set of screw drivers that he won from a christmas cracker! It’s as if it were destiny! (I should point out that me and Will are not gay nor in any kind of dodgy relationship together, we just happen to have the same screwdrivers, though mine look slightly better!)
Quality Hardware
As you can see, they are an incredible present to receive along with the customary joke and paper hat. Unfortunately, Will has a lot of trouble screwing with his. He blames it on greasy palms and wraps a tea towel around his hands in an effort to reduce the slip-tion (new word!!) he is experiencing. I pity him, it doesn’t help and I end up screwing everything!
The completed back
Finally, after about an hour and 16 screws later (i think that averages to a screw every 4 minutes), we have the beautifully finished back panel! Once again the wooden spoon makes an appearance in the above photo.
Will's hairy arms attach the last piece
The last stage is for Will (and his hairy arms) to attach the roof to the unit which I think he did brilliantly and without any help from the wooden spoon! Now that it’s finished, all that was left was to put in the shelves and stock it with CD’s and DVD’s!!
Me pointing to the masterpiece of a shelving unit
And here we have the finished masterpiece! Beautiful flat-pack-craftmanship!!!
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