Day 6.1 It's Up, IT's UP!

Yes, the Expedit is assembled and up against the wall. I'd told my husband I was reluctant to "get into it" tonight. I told him, "People take days to get this together. Entire afternoons, whole weekends go by before this thing is done. I don't want to be stepping over pieces all day tomorrow."

But he says, "We're Canadians. We'll have it done in no time."
(eh?)

So, both of us eyed the clock: 5:45pm. We absolutely had to finish by 7:30pm. That's when my hubby takes the boy to music lessons. And so we began. Count out the hardware. Get the mallet. (Great mallet. Was given to the husband from a guy in the Armed Forces. We assume some stores clerk probably had to fill out multiple forms in triplicate because of it.)

We get all the pieces laid out properly and start hammering in pegs. Oh, let's move the top and side out of the way. Apparently those go on after we put the bottom and one side together with the shelves and the long horizontal bits. OK. As we attached the first row of shelves, we notice that, oh my, there's a teeny tiny gap between the shelf and the floor. Hmmm. We put on the long horizontal piece and it dawns on us the pegs are to be used for two layers of shelving. Oh-OK. On we go.

We're just about done, finally putting on the side piece: disaster. One of the pegs is a teeny bit tight and in trying to bang it in (as well as trying to fit the side piece UP into the top piece and INTO the horizontal bits simultaneously) shelves start popping out. After madly and randomly trying to fix them back in, I say, "Let's do this in order--one row at a time."

The husband says, "Let's turn this up against the wall and let gravity help us."

"But the instructions don't say to do it that way."

"It'll be a lot easier if it we put it up against the wall and let gravity do the work."

"But they don't show you to do it that way. I'm sure there's a reason." (Yes, there is a great deal of frustration and panic and volume in my voice.)

As I say this, I'm removing the shelves from the horizontal bits and stacking them in a pile.

"We should have done this when we had the first couple of rows done."

"OK, I'm not arguing with you. I don't think it will work. I just don't think it will work. But we can try."

And so, holding tightly to the two rows left attached to the bottom and the one side, we tip it up, and move it right into the corner of the room.

And so it was done.

The side that gave us such trouble the first time was only mildly troublesome the second. And thanks to the help of gravity, none of the other shelves and bits popped out while we got it in place.

"You tell them that's how it's done." He says to me.

Then we realise we need to screw in the bottom corner: now inaccessible on the floor. Just as my husband was about to tip the unit back to the floor, I said, "No, no, no. Wait 'til we get the top piece on. It'll hold together better."

"Good idea." He said.

And so it was done.

He wants me to tell you it took us one hour and twenty five minutes. Sober.

And I want to tell you it took me exactly one hour and thirty minutes to fill it.

Boom dada bloomin' boom.

(To give you an idea of what I was expecting, I offer these pictoral anecdotes I came across in my research of the Expedit on flickr:
(1) http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennypeters/515244239/
(2) and the little photo essay here really scared me: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blackanddrippingblue/68158314/)