Day 2: buffet

I was super excited to post my accomplishment and wish I could say that everything went successfully today with the self assembly of my buffet.

The good news is that I did not have to buy pliers (pinces) because the grumpy man at the bricolage pulled my wooden wedgie things out with his own pliers when I showed him my mistakes in the support beams. Wow! Someone doing something helpful, it sort of reminded about the way things use to work back in the US.

I was eager to complete my project and quickly got back to work. I was reminded about how great I am at following directions. When something wasn't working, I stopped and tried to understand why rather than forcing it. One time, I simply walked away and returned later and the exact same difficult piece was miraculously cooperative. I thought about how frustrating it can be to assemble with a partner who approached things in a rushed, chaotic way and was sort of relieved that I was going it solo.

I realized very quickly why the instructions say that it takes 2 people to set this up. Flipping over the assembled piece was a challenge, but it was resolved with a large beach towel and a cardboard box support. I flipped it by myself and that was a small victory for me--proving that I can tackle a task on my own without having to stop and enlist reinforcement. That seems to be where a lot of my past projects were left incomplete.

I just wish that the hinges would have played nice. Those things are near impossible to tighten with just a phillips head screwdriver. And that is why I will buy a drill tomorrow. I figured I am going to be needing a drill a lot in the future and might as well get my own rather than relying on the Boys to supply my power tool needs.

Alas, we await tomorrow (Day 3) to finish the buffet assembly. More patience practicing.