Not quite

Since one of the main goals of my spring break was to take care of that huge box that's been hanging out in my living room for the past five weeks, yesterday's One Productive Thing was going to be to get the futon put together and get that room mostly finished.

Yesterday evening, Paul and I got everything out of the big box and moved it into the the guest room. Paul hurt his back helping his friend move a huge projection TV from a 2nd floor apartment on Thursday so I was going to put the futon together myself. The directions didn't seem complicated since the majority of the construction is the four sides of the base and I'm typically pretty good about putting together ready-to-assemble stuff. Not so much this time. I couldn't even get the first bracket attached. After fiddling with it for a bit, I finally hollered at Paul to come help. He fiddled with it for a bit and came to the same conclusion as me--it doesn't fit. The screws that were in place for the bracket are too far apart.

Of course, we started this project after the helpline was closed so our attempts to get started on it, much less finish, have been thwarted. We've got a couple of ideas as to what we're going to do--1. call the helpline on Monday to see what they say/suggest 2. go back to World Market to see how they assembled the floor model (we'll just look it over and see if we can make ours work) 3. head to the hardware store to see if we can find something to make what we've got work or 4. load the whole thing up again and return it to the store. It's all very frustrating--it was supposed to be all finished and I was going to finally get rid of that box. I'm glad it's no longer taking up space in my living room any long--it's been moved to the guest room for the time being, until we can get it assembled or returned. Paul, ever one to look on the bright side, gave me just a little bit of time to wallow in frustration and then he commented that at least I had something to write about on the blog now. True but I would have been happier to be able to write about how great the new futon and everything looks.

Hopefully, if/when I finally get a new dining room table and chairs, it will be much less frustrating.