Around noon on Tuesday I received the call from the returns supervisor to let me know they had tracked down the receipt, and were able to do the exchange. I could either bring the single bed back to the store for the exchange, receiving a voucher for $40 in gas, or get free delivery to the house, but they'd have to figure out when the delivery could be made.
As I was eager to assemble the big boy bed, (and because of the gas money, whee!) I chose the former option and said I'd be in that night. Then I checked the website to see what the package dimensions of the bunk bed were. When we had purchased the bed two weeks ago, the floorperson looked it up in the system and saw that there were two boxes, and obviously since we had purchased them we were confident that it would have fit into the Mazda 5, but I of course wanted to be paranoid sure.
Yup, the HEMNES bed frame says "2 boxes" alright... clicking to see the measurements of the boxes gets you...
Article number:70045383 Width:110 cm Height:14 cm Length:205 cm Weight:63,0 kg Quantity:1
Okay, that's only one box listed. It's twice the width of the single bed's 1m x 1m box containing headboards, which would make sense since there are four headboards... so why is it 2 metres long? I also found it hard to believe that had I been told there was a 1x2m box that I would have said "Yes, that will fit" when we bought the thing.
So I called a guy at customer service and asked. I was told "That would be the measurement of the biggest box." "Oh. Well, when we were in the store they looked it up in the system and told us it was two boxes. The web page says it's two boxes. I've bought bigger things from IKEA in the past, and it's hard to believe 130 pounds of pieces would be shoved into a single 2x1 metre box." "Yes, it's the bigger box. There would be a second box that's just not listed on the web page."
After arranging to borrow my father's truck, then realizing I would have to lug an awkward sized box into the house in the cold, we arranged to switch to home-delivery.
While talking to the customer service guy I should have asked what the measurement of the second smaller box was, because two conveniently car-fitting sized packages have arrived at our door two days after I could have been assembling the thing. Had I asked about this second box, perhaps the customer service guy would have actually looked in the system himself to see that he shouldn't make assumptions lest he make an ass out of U... himself... and... mptions.
IKEA has received an email, praising the help from the returns department, damning the lazy nameless customer service rep, and suggesting that the web page be updated to reflect the actual package sizes.
After an arduous weekend, the office emptied, and Kiernan's big boy room is all ready for set-up!
Last night I dragged the IKEA HEMNES bunk bed boxes up to the room and began (carefully) opening the cardboard.
"Lara," I called downstairs, "What colour did we order?"
"Antique - It only comes in antique... why? What did they give us?"
"Black."
She came up and took a look "Yep, that's black. Count the pieces."
We had wondered how a bunk bed could fit into two boxes when Lara had brought the boxes from her parents' house, but after checking the website in my usual paranoid manner, we saw that yes, the HEMNES comes in two boxes. Technically we got two boxes and a bundle of wooden slats... I just figured so few slats were just further apart.
But alas, it turns out instead of this...
... the warehouse had given us this:
On top of it all, we couldn't locate the receipt. I've got receipts for crushed stone delivered to my driveway three and a half years ago, but not from a bunk bed, paid in cash two weeks ago. We had also purchased a DAVE laptop stand on a separate purchase, and that receipt was also missing, so they're probably hiding somewhere together, fearful of my IKEA wrath.
I lugged the bed across town (what's up with this one IKEA per city rule anyway?) where I received ticket #249 for service. They were serving 236, a lady who was screaming at the supervisor about some silk flowers she wanted to return. The supervisor was almost in tears, so of course my retail-brain kicks in and I start feeling sympathy for the evil IKEA people who gave me the wrong bed.
After the lady stormed past, it became apparent that there was only one customer service rep working alongside the supervisor. The red-eyed supervisor came out and let us know individually that their system was down and they can still process returns, but would we like water or a hot dog or ice cream. Damn your friendly tactics, IKEA staff!
Of course, as she got to me I quickly explained my situation: Wrong bed, no receipt, purchased on the 17th of January at around 2pm. She went "Oh dear." and grabbed a phone off her belt to call the warehouse. She chatted a bit, told me they would definitely fix this, and went to the back room.
I tried to not think of all the customers who she hadn't gotten to yet, glaring at me for depriving them of the free offer of hot dogs and lingonberry juice.
Since the system was down, they had no way of getting to my record at the moment, but the supervisor took my name and number and will be calling me today around lunchtime. She said they WILL get me my bunk bed, and also offered to pay for my gas for wasting my trip. The absolute nerve of IKEA employees softening my anger with your excellent customer service! Gr!
Apologies go out to customers #242 through #248 who were still waiting for service as I lugged the bed back to the car.
So, the radio blared talk radio at the skunks for about a week, and still I hadn't found a source of free fill to shove under the shed. But common sense (aka Lara concerned about the electricity that the super powerful $18 Funysonic radio was draining) prevailed and I shut it off.
I found a bag of potting soil inside the shed, but it was not enough. I found some old pot plants full of soil, shoved it under, but it was not enough.
It was then that I realized that we have had a compost bin that for two years, and we have two or three garden plots which have become overrun by grass, weeds, and extra-tenacious perennials which are likely never to need the extra-rich soil. So under it went. Still, it was not enough.
After three or so more weeks passing, the shed seems uninhabited, which is good. I'm thinking it's not getting any new residents because the news spread throughout the local animal populace about the infamy of Stuart McLean... if only the sound waves caused by his voice countered the (slightly faded) skunky smells... or maybe it did, but Lara made me turn it off.
Okay, it's been a week of talk radio. So either the skunk is gone or is able to now intelligently debate subjects of a topical nature. After waiting to ensure no rain was on its way, I laid out a layer of flour at the multiple exits yesterday. This morning it was undisturbed. So it's gone.
The question now remains: Do I turn off the radio and risk the skunk coming back, or do I wait until I locate some sort of earthy fill to toss under the shed... plus we were thinking of burying chicken wire to prevent future digging, so I'd need to buy that, too... too bad I couldn't bury balloons full of jalapeno-and-onion skunk juice around the shed... any digging and POP! Skunk gets sprayed...
With the almost-doorframe-sized KULLEN closet slid carefully into the basement rec room, I found myself in need of some sort of challenge.... what to do...
Last year we had a skunk move in under the garbage shed. Searching online provided a solution that seemed like it could work... So off to Farm Boy I went, and came back home to chop up one yellow onion and one jalapeno pepper, and boil them in a water/cayenne pepper solution for 20 minutes. After straining the liquid into a spray bottle, I was all set.
I excessively coated the ground around the hole leading under the shed, then sprinkled a layer of flour on the wet dirt. The next morning, pawprints led out of the hole but did not return. I sprinkled more flour, waited a few days, but the skunk was gone. The hole was filled, stones were laid atop it, and the skunks never returned to the undersides of that shed.
Our other shed on the other hand.... sometime during the winter a skunk (or two?) has gone beneath our bigger shed. You know, the weatherproofed nice one that we keep all our excess stuff in. Our now skunk-scented stuff. Like stuff we were going to sell at a garage sale. Or our patio furniture. Or our strollers.
Since I have only a quarter of the anti-skunk juice left, and the amount of escape areas from beneath that shed are numerous, a new plan must be set in place.
My initial thought process went something like: 1. Get one of those loud air horns. 2. Shut myself into the shed 3. Plug ears and honk (the horn) like mad.
That plan was abandoned when I realized "Since the skunk scent is lingering simply from it living under there, what would happen should it wake, suddenly startled, and spray... with me in a non-ventilated shed directly above?"
So, Plan B was put into action: yesterday, a small radio was placed in the shed playing talk radio loud enough that the skunk could hear, but not so loud as to violate noise bylaws... and if the skunk isn't scared away by the sound of talking upstairs by this time tomorrow, well...
This time tomorrow the Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean is on.
Okay, so upon looking at the next step, the nailing of the back boards. Eighty six nails? Really? My first instinct was to determine mathematically the proper distribution of nails.
"Haha, that would make a funny blog post!" I thought, "Or... a really lame one."
You know, now that I think about it, it would be something like, right off the top of my head 2x + 4y = 86. Counting the number of nails used along the bottom in the diagram would mean x was 10, therefore y would be 16 and a half nails.
Which explains why, since I just started hammering away, I ran out of nails and had to dig into my personal stash.
So the backboard went on (only two nails missing the wood underneath, and two other nails causing the birch laminate to buckle at the sides - maybe that's why they included the glue in the bag o parts?), the feet were nailed in, and the cupboard was stood up.
But IKEA had to ruin our plans of a crazy-kitchen setup with this image: Fine. But when my kid crawls into the cupboard and isn't immediately ejected, I'm calling their support line to complain.
Okay, rewind to IKEA Ottawa, when we first bought the cabinets. I didn't have my cellphone. Lara's was dead. I needed to do some quick math to see if the 145 cm wide cabinet would fit diagonally in the 120x100cm space. Of course, it does, when you draw a triangle and calculate with good old Pythagoras'... but of course, that just measures the triangle made by the back of the cabinet... it's the depth of the cabinet that sticks out and, you know, blocks doorways.
Sooooo it'll be going in the rec room downstairs... and we'll have to figure out what other IKEA fits in the basement hallway - more storage than we wished for... I guess...
Step 1 of the KULLEN has you assembling the middle, top and bottom boards into an I shape. The diagram is drawn at an angle, so it looks like the vertical board is halfway between what will become the two cupboards. In actuality, one side is narrower than the other. There was also a slight difference in the two boards (the top had two holes, the bottom had four), and it took some lining up and figuring out which OTHER holes were meant for the clothing bar... but in the end, I had an I lying on the floor.
The area in which it will end up is at the bottom of the basement stairs, so that is where it is being assembled. Of course, it turns out that was barely going to be 5 inches of working room around the edges. This meant *thunder crashes*I couldn't use the cordless drill*ominous chord*
Looking back, the first thing that went wrong was that I noticed two of the holes on the middle board weren't drilled all the way through. This happened while assembling the TROFAST toy shelves, so I was able to use the cordless drill to punch all the way through.
The second thing that went wrong was that I attached the shelves according to the diagram, then realized I was assembling the pieces so that the back of the cabinet was against the floor. This would not do, as I would need to nail on the back of the cupboard. So, with great effort, I managed to flip the whole unit over. Now the shelves were on the wrong sides according to the diagram. So that hole I drilled all the way through? Didn't need that. In fact, I had the shelves in the wrong place, and now there will be patching to do when we're through.
At the end of the evening I had assembled the nine pieces of wood into a sturdy frame. Huzzah! All set for the nailing of the back boards, to be done at a later date...
Day 3:
Fuckmonkeys. So. The next step showed the biggest back board fitting exactly on the back above where the drawers would be. This back board was as wide as the narrower half of the closet. During the flipping and switching of boards, I'd lost track of the top (two holes) and bottom (four holes) boards in step 1. Plus it seemed that the shelves has been in the right place, the top and bottom just needed to be flipped 180 degrees. Maybe if I unscrew just the parts I need to switch around and...
Well. There we go, 9 boards and 20 screws now lay, separately, on the floor. At least the reconstruction only took a quarter of the time as it did last night, but at the end of the night, I nailed on the big back board and realized if I nailed the other back pieces on as well I would suddenly be without space to walk. Day 4 will involve some careful balancing.
I have assembled three BILLY bookcases and three MARKOR bookcases (We read. A lot. And we only wish we had room for more). Big wicker BASTANT baskets store toys and other baby stuff on the bottom shelves of the latter three.
Two POÄNGs, both with footstools, plus two mini-POÄNGS for Kiernan to sit on, stand on yelling "GET DOWWWN!" or pee on. Dammit. But I digress.
Both the crib and change table upstairs are DIKTAD, and in the living room there's a TROFAST toy sorter in the corner, just calling out to Kiernan, "Psst! Hey, kid! Look at me, I'm a big stairway to Funville (population: BOOM!) - too bad I'm not turned around so you can reach the mantle! But hey, that's only one well-timed jump away!"
I organized our kitchen pantry with IKEA boxes, baskets, and sliding basket drawers of which were a quarter of an inch narrower than said pantry - yet I managed to make it work despite my lack of mad carpentry skillz.
As well: Various lamps, cutlery, tweezer-like cooking tongs, TV stands, hanging closet sorters, magnetic knife racks (for the magnetic spice jars - it is truly a thing of beauty), and baby clothes hangers which I won't be searching the IKEA names of because really, it doesn't impress you that much, y'know?
All this to say we have lots of IKEA, 75% of which I have assembled. I've also been called in to assemble the IKEA of friends, so I'm pretty damn good with an Allen key - so good in fact that the first thing I do is throw the keys away so I can tighten the screws with my bare hand (held cordless drill).
This thing is going in the basement to help us stuff even more storage space into our packrat lifestyle. Because really, if our house was like my childhood hamster, and our stuff was carrot sticks... well, let me just show you (note: not my hamster):
Only without the jazz music.
Anyway, the KULLEN came to us in the form of two long brown packages which have sat in our living room for the past 24 hours.
Staring at me. Calling out to me to be assembled. Assembled before they tip over from where they are leaning.
Eagerly, I ripped at the cardboard with my bare hands, attempting to get past the evil flesh cutting cardboard coating to reveal the birch beneath.
Sifting through the contents, I realize - THE INSTRUCTIONS ARE IN THE OTHER BOX! You know, the one marked "Box 1"
Again I tear in, pulling out one... two.. three bags of fixtures... and... glue? IKEA has glue!
At last the paper booklet was in my grasp. I turned past the iconic first page (blah blah do not assemble alone blah blah) to find... um... two pages listing all the hardware. Wow. This thing really is big. And I'm the type of person to inventory the hardware first thing, so...
So!
Right.
So I carried everything to the basement, to get a move on all that tomorrow night.
My life, my overexposure to kids' tv shows, and the hilarious stuff my kids will inevitably say which I will forget if it's not immediately recorded for the world to see.
