I’m putting something together, flip the page of the instructions for the next step, stare it for two minutes trying to figure out why they want me to assemble it upside down. Then it dawns on me that in the process of flipping the page I managed to turn the instructions upside down.

Reason 513 I am not a pilot.

Wait...

They come with instructions?

quote:

Originally posted by .38supersig:

They come with instructions?

By not putting text in those instructions, they save a lot in translation costs, I guess.

Very important to confuse/annoy speakers of all languages equally, I suppose. I wonder if the savings in translation outweigh the returns/customer service calls from obscure assembly instructions.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: joel9507,

Even without holding the pictures upside down, a lot of them have a skewed perspective.

Do not, under any circumstances, undertake this for some bunkbeds with your wife's twice-divorced best friend while your wife is "working on other things" on another floor far far away.

Unless of course you desire additional perspective on the reasons she is not able to maintain a relationship.....

^^^ Although a joke, it's not far off.

My definition in life for when I knew that I was successful was when I could buy furniture I did not have to put together.

Another measure of success could be reaching a point where you choose to do the jobs you want to do. In this case, good furniture would not be a wise choice.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
Another measure of success could be reaching a point where you choose to do the jobs you want to do. In this case, good furniture would not be a wise choice.

And I did! And did quite well!
LOL

Go look at the price of preassembled furniture and report back!

Sticker shock for a 30in bathroom vanity. $500 gets you plastic doors.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

Ikea. Jigsaw puzzles for grownups.

Best I can do is rent you my 16-year-old son.

He loves this sort of thing.
He assembled our 10' x 10' gazebo with very little help, and the instructions said it called for four to six people.

I'm pretty good at assembling modular furniture and used to help out a buddy who had a side hustle assembly furniture for offices, everything from shelving to cubicle assemblies.

My wife has volunteered me a few times to help out her friends, which I'm OK with, but I have 1 non-negotiable iron clad rule. If I show up and the box has been opened, I'm gone. This rule came to be after the first time she asked me to help out her single friend who got halfway putting together a loft bed/desk/dresser combo for her son, and couldn’t figure out the next step because she had used parts in the wrong places and out of order. It took me 2 days to unfuck it and get it right. Never again.

In 2003 I had a 27-unit apartment building put up and as it neared completion it came time for cabinets. I went to Ikea with my plans and they worked up all the individual components for the kitchens and 27 bathroom vanities. There were two different layouts.

When I assisted one of my employees assembling the first kitchen we found 3 or 4 cabinets were not in the many hundreds of boxes. When we moved to the other kitchen configuration there were a couple of top cabinets along with base cabinet drawers, handles, and shelves for other top cabinets missing.

I left him and a helper to assemble everything and each day he'd give me a list of more things missing and I'd have to call Ikea for more things for them to order. They were good about it and never tried to charge for anything but what a shit show! We also ended up with cartons of various things left over that were not used in either layout which I returned when I drove up to pick up the last order of missing stuff.

My wife has actually gotten pretty good at assembling anything that needs it. I just keep her supplied with the right tools. She has more patience than I do anyway .

quote:

Originally posted by lizardman_u:
Best I can do is rent you my 16-year-old son.

He loves this sort of thing.
He assembled our 10' x 10' gazebo with very little help, and the instructions said it called for four to six people.

I enjoy 'some assembly required' most of the time.
We got 2 of our kids 'loft' beds, came from Vietnam with 75% decent instructions. There were a few places that just made no sense & I had to figure out how it was actually supposed to go together.

I built my own 10x12 shed from scratch using my own hand-drawn chicken-scratch plans, and it was easier than some of those pre-packaged furniture kits. 100x better quality, too.

Recently, I have purchased and assembled a few cube organizers in my downstairs den, to be used as bookshelves. Simple enough.

But in the garage, I designed and built a workbench out of scrap lumber the previous owners had left. I only had to buy a few more pieces to finish it.

I am about to build an elevated shelf in the garage, to fit over my 4-wheeler, and plan on building a small deck on top of the patio slab in the backyard. The patio is covered, and I may eventually enclose it into a screened patio.