ikea fun
Damn.
I thought I was pretty good at assembling Ikea bits, since I had a fair assortment of their stuff at my old apartment in San Diego. Little did I know that bookshelves and even tables are nothing, nothing, compared to cabinetry.
deliriumdreams thought that a freestanding cabinet would give us a lot more countertop space and under-counter storage in the kitchen, so we bought one this weekend on our trip to Phoenix.
Ever heard the expression "your eyes are bigger than your stomach", when you order too much food, or take too much food off a buffet? Well, that was deliriumdreams and I at the Ikea in Tempe, Arizona. (Yes, that is the nearest Ikea to Albuquerque, SFAIK.) We bought a lot of stuff.
Enough that I had to do the math on the weight quite a few times to make sure we would be safe driving back with all of it; the RAV4 is rated for 525kg total cargo, and the two of us alone are 170kg of that. Doing the sums a few different ways got me in the 800kg ballpark, so we were safe -- although, as I found out later, only barely. On the other paw, thank goodness for all those hours / months / years I spent playing Tetris! We barely had room for everything, even putting the two long boxes on the roof rack.
That barely reference above: the kitchen island portion of the purpose came in three boxes, and the Ikea standard is to put the total weight on the first of any multi-box set. This set indicated that the total weight was 25kg (about 55lb). So I was a bit startled when I could barely lift the first box by itself! The other two were manageable, but only barely. When we got home, I finally weighed them: the first box weighed 55kg, and the other two boxes weighed 17kg each, for a total of about 90kg -- which is not much less than I weigh!
I've sent them a note about the off-by-a-factor-of-four error, as it could be a safety issue (either for the personnel lifting the boxes, or for load calculations like those I was doing earlier). We'll see if they say anything about it.
Anyway, we got back home safe and sound; the RAV4 handled very politely even with the extra 350kg of cargo, and the milage was still acceptable -- about 20mpg, vs the 25 it would otherwise get. Pretty impressive, considering that included the climb from Phoenix to Flagstaff (a gain of some 6k ft over about 120mi).
Building the bloody thing, on the other paw ... it's the first time I've seen drills or awls specified in Ikea directions, and it took me 6 hours (!) to put this thing together -- that's substantially longer than any other Ikea furniture I've ever bought. It does look pretty good, though, so I'm hoping that we'll get lots of use out of it.
I thought I was pretty good at assembling Ikea bits, since I had a fair assortment of their stuff at my old apartment in San Diego. Little did I know that bookshelves and even tables are nothing, nothing, compared to cabinetry.
deliriumdreams thought that a freestanding cabinet would give us a lot more countertop space and under-counter storage in the kitchen, so we bought one this weekend on our trip to Phoenix.
Ever heard the expression "your eyes are bigger than your stomach", when you order too much food, or take too much food off a buffet? Well, that was deliriumdreams and I at the Ikea in Tempe, Arizona. (Yes, that is the nearest Ikea to Albuquerque, SFAIK.) We bought a lot of stuff.
Enough that I had to do the math on the weight quite a few times to make sure we would be safe driving back with all of it; the RAV4 is rated for 525kg total cargo, and the two of us alone are 170kg of that. Doing the sums a few different ways got me in the 800kg ballpark, so we were safe -- although, as I found out later, only barely. On the other paw, thank goodness for all those hours / months / years I spent playing Tetris! We barely had room for everything, even putting the two long boxes on the roof rack.
That barely reference above: the kitchen island portion of the purpose came in three boxes, and the Ikea standard is to put the total weight on the first of any multi-box set. This set indicated that the total weight was 25kg (about 55lb). So I was a bit startled when I could barely lift the first box by itself! The other two were manageable, but only barely. When we got home, I finally weighed them: the first box weighed 55kg, and the other two boxes weighed 17kg each, for a total of about 90kg -- which is not much less than I weigh!
I've sent them a note about the off-by-a-factor-of-four error, as it could be a safety issue (either for the personnel lifting the boxes, or for load calculations like those I was doing earlier). We'll see if they say anything about it.
Anyway, we got back home safe and sound; the RAV4 handled very politely even with the extra 350kg of cargo, and the milage was still acceptable -- about 20mpg, vs the 25 it would otherwise get. Pretty impressive, considering that included the climb from Phoenix to Flagstaff (a gain of some 6k ft over about 120mi).
Building the bloody thing, on the other paw ... it's the first time I've seen drills or awls specified in Ikea directions, and it took me 6 hours (!) to put this thing together -- that's substantially longer than any other Ikea furniture I've ever bought. It does look pretty good, though, so I'm hoping that we'll get lots of use out of it.