ikea furniture challenge

somebody in germany had donated a large amount of ikea furniture to the prof. desks, shelves, drawer units - all very useful things, but of course they arrived flat-packed.

somebody in ghana then had to unpack and build it all.

so we put together a mixed-national team of ikea enthusiasts, ikea non-enthusiasts, and a few people who had not yet realised that they were about to become ikea enthusiasts by the end of the day.

john and dacosta were my two helpers. building ikea furniture can be challenging for anybody, no matter where you come from, and the famous little instruction booklets do sometimes leave room for interpretation. the first two billy shelves we build together. or rather, we built them, looked at them, realised something is not quite right, and then took parts of them apart again because somehow the back had to become the front.

after some debate, some laughter and another careful look at the instructions, we manage to get them the right way round. when the first two shelves are finally standing, straight and solid, we are rather proud of ourselves.

from then on, john and dacosta are on their own with the remaining shelves, while i move on to assembling tables and desk drawer modules. by now everybody has worked out the system, and things start moving much faster. cardboard boxes disappear (where to i will tell you later), piles of screws become smaller, and gradually the empty rooms begin to look like proper offices.

by the evening, the entire admin tract is furnished with new shelving, desks and work stations. what started the morning as a mountain of flat-packed boxes has become a functional working environment.

and john and dacosta can now proudly add ‘ikea furniture assembly’ to their list of qualifications.