We weren't either until this weekend.
This is the weekend that Mr. and Mrs. W took on the daunting task of preparing furniture and a room for our new addition to the family. Now, we had already partially cleared the room and painted, and had been "gathering" things for awhile, but we really hadn't made much commitment as to where either him or his stuff was going to go in that room. Being as how we are late getting started in the child bearing game, we have many, many friends who have been there and done that and were more than willing to pass on a number of items they are no longer using. It's actually pretty great because even though we are buying a lot of new things, we have "backup" replacements all over the place for when we forget something somewhere, break it, or whatever the case may be. The best part being that we know the parents and kids that used the stuff, so there's no fear of cooties.
So Saturday night, pregnant Mrs. W and Mr. W went off to the neighborhood Baby Depot in search of, at the least, a dresser for our baby. We had a couple of crib "options" from friends and family, but we learned pretty quickly that with a 14-16 week wait on anything ordered and a difficulty level of 10 in actually matching furniture pieces while we were in the store, we were best off just buying our little guy his very own set from whatever we could find that was in stock.
That was challenging enough. We identified 2 matching pieces that were listed as in stock, and went to the front to pay, while Adam, our friendly neighborhood furniture finder went to the back to bring them up. Nearly 10 minutes later he came back to say they couldn't find the dresser, only the crib, and that he could call another store to see if it was in while they continued to look. As Mr. W started to show the same sense of urgency toward this project that Mrs. W had several weeks ago, we agreed to let him call. Meanwhile, there was another couple trying to buy the same dresser and being told the same thing. As events unfolded, we found that there was one left in the back for us, and breathed a sigh of relief. After finally getting home and spending about 2-3 hours on assembly of this coveted item, we discovered in step 13(basically the end) that one of the pieces was broken. Now, this furniture came from Brazil, and while there was a customer service number on the packaging, we already knew that a 14 week turnaround would turn into 24 weeks if we called ourselves. We were pleased enough when we went back the next day and took the one, and I mean one drawer on the floor model that hadn't been broken by shoppers in trade for the broken parts. Just knowing that the 300 screws and parts wouldn't need to be removed and repackaged for a return made us want to cry with joy.
The crib went together with a little less drama, but the directions were a little bit skewed. You see, on the diagram, they had, from what I recall, 7 steps listed. Each step had about, oh, 10 or more additional steps within that step. For example, step one might have been, put the 30 wood pegs into the slots on 14 of the random crib pieces in the box. Step 2 might be, attach piece 1-20 to each other, with 4 "a" screws each, in all four corners. Only it was all on a tiny diagram, not written out, so we just had to hope we picked the right pre-drilled "courtesy hole".
I have attached a photo of what the dresser looked like when we were finished with it at 1am on Saturday.
There's nothing like the feeling of finishing a project like that only to know that despite all of your efforts, the thing just isn't finished.
When we had that final drawer in hand and Mr. W slid it into place on Sunday evening, it was like a thousand tons of weight lifted off our shoulders.
Mr. W says for Tanner's first birthday he is getting a toolbox and putting the rest of his stuff together from then on. I immediately envision my baby riding his first bike down the street as the pedals and wheels fall off.
I will have to remember that and buy him the knee pads and helmet.
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