The past week had been quite busy, with applying for jobs, helping out friends, and buying, selling, and moving stuff around inside the house. It's slowly coming together, although there are still boxes here and there full of less important things that we'll get to... eventually. For the most part, however, things are where they ought to be, and we've been able to turn our attention to things we want, but don't have (but can still afford: sadly, a brand new yacht is not in the works just yet). As such, a trip to Ikea was made, and we got to break out the tools to set up new stuff.
One of the things I have always wanted is a nice, big, sewing table. It's very annoying to try to lay out a seam for flat sewing when the wall is only 5" past the sewing machine, and the table you're working on is flexing under the weight and vibrations of said machine. Unfortunately, most heavy, solid tables are also ridiculously expensive, so when I found a series of choose-your-own table tops and legs at Ikea, I was thrilled that the large table tops were a) solid, b) cheap, and c) fairly lightweight still! For $26, I got a 60x30" table top, and four adjustable legs were a grand total of $14. Considering you can't find an adult-sized work desk for less than about $100, I was in heaven.
After we got it (and everything else) home, and enough boxes cleared away that I had work space, I set about putting it together. Each table leg consisted of the leg itself, the cap that connected it to the table top, and five screws.
Upon opening the first one, I did what to me was immediately obvious, which was to connect the leg to the cap to make sure I understood the concept correctly. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like there was a good way to get solid purchase on the screws with an electric screwdriver, so I spent some pretty tedious time screwing five 1" screws into fairly small pilot holes, barking my knuckles against the leg the whole time.
I wasn't too thrilled about the amount of time this was going to take, but hey, a table's a table right?
Remember back in the 90s when those 3D "magic eye" images came out?
You'd stare at them forever, going cross-eyed, and then suddenly, everything would dissolve into a clear 3D picture and you wondered why you ever had problems seeing it? That's how I felt when I unwrapped the second leg, and stared at it, unenthused. "Wait a minute," said my not-so-brilliant mind, "why don't you put the screws in before you attach the leg to the cap?" Duh.
The rest of the assembly of the table took me less than 10 minutes, all-told. It seems, sometimes, as if my brain insists on slogging through and doing things the hard way the first time, so that I know what all of the proper steps are and how everything should be done, before finally catching up to what's going on and suggesting shortcuts or alternative ways. Perhaps there is merit to this, because it means I'm not skipping things that I simply don't know about, but man, sometimes you just feel slow...
Cheers!
One of the things I have always wanted is a nice, big, sewing table. It's very annoying to try to lay out a seam for flat sewing when the wall is only 5" past the sewing machine, and the table you're working on is flexing under the weight and vibrations of said machine. Unfortunately, most heavy, solid tables are also ridiculously expensive, so when I found a series of choose-your-own table tops and legs at Ikea, I was thrilled that the large table tops were a) solid, b) cheap, and c) fairly lightweight still! For $26, I got a 60x30" table top, and four adjustable legs were a grand total of $14. Considering you can't find an adult-sized work desk for less than about $100, I was in heaven.
After we got it (and everything else) home, and enough boxes cleared away that I had work space, I set about putting it together. Each table leg consisted of the leg itself, the cap that connected it to the table top, and five screws.
Upon opening the first one, I did what to me was immediately obvious, which was to connect the leg to the cap to make sure I understood the concept correctly. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like there was a good way to get solid purchase on the screws with an electric screwdriver, so I spent some pretty tedious time screwing five 1" screws into fairly small pilot holes, barking my knuckles against the leg the whole time.
I wasn't too thrilled about the amount of time this was going to take, but hey, a table's a table right?
Remember back in the 90s when those 3D "magic eye" images came out?
You'd stare at them forever, going cross-eyed, and then suddenly, everything would dissolve into a clear 3D picture and you wondered why you ever had problems seeing it? That's how I felt when I unwrapped the second leg, and stared at it, unenthused. "Wait a minute," said my not-so-brilliant mind, "why don't you put the screws in before you attach the leg to the cap?" Duh.
The rest of the assembly of the table took me less than 10 minutes, all-told. It seems, sometimes, as if my brain insists on slogging through and doing things the hard way the first time, so that I know what all of the proper steps are and how everything should be done, before finally catching up to what's going on and suggesting shortcuts or alternative ways. Perhaps there is merit to this, because it means I'm not skipping things that I simply don't know about, but man, sometimes you just feel slow...
Cheers!
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