Do it Yourself — a Bargain or a Headache?
Those famous last words… “some assembly required.” Any parent who has ever lived through a holiday season with a child knows the pain of those words (that and “batteries not included”). And, if you need a new piece of furniture on a tight budget, you too can know the pain and suffering of assembly!
Back in June our house flooded (you can read the details at in my blog post “How NOT to Handle Unwanted, Stressful, ‘Life-Happens’ Situations”) and while we didn’t lose much furniture, an old faux-wood microwave stand that held the TV and videos in our spare room bit the dust. Since that time we’ve let the TV sit in the garage and I haven’t missed it one bit. However, as the temperatures approach freezing we figured we better bring it back in the house if we expect it to actually work in the future. Thus, the hunt for an inexpensive piece of furniture that could hold the TV and tapes while possibly fulfilling some other purpose in our next home. Well, while I was away in Chicago last weekend, my partner Kim did a fabulous job of finding a new and improved faux wood piece with a reasonable price tag. Yesterday I got blessed with having to assemble it.
Many things came to mind yesterday as the “quick and easy” and “approximately 1 hour assembly time” promises morphed into a tug of war with pressboard, missing screws, ridiculous diagrams, and 3 hours of my precious free time. New profanity was invented, creative solutions to missing pieces were employed, and tempers were kept to a dull flame. But, it got me to thinking about what kind of bargains we delude ourselves into buying. If you factor in 2 people working full speed for 3 hours (6 person hours) on a piece that cost $80-ish dollars at the department store, perhaps I should’ve just purchased a solid wood quality piece for several hundred dollars! I’m not totally sold on the fact that faux wood which instantly crumbles if it gets wet (lesson learned during the flood) and splits in sections even when you follow the assembly instructions is the best choice for the money. It is a powerful societal statement though when as a whole we would rather purchase cheap, imported furniture for the opportunity to save a few dollars, suffer mercilessly while assembling, and cash in our precious weekend time. How much are we really “saving” in the end? Goodness knows the piece doesn’t have longevity.
So, when does it make sense to make this tradeoff? In my experience I’ll take the inexpensive, high aggravation route if it:
- fulfills a temporary need
- isn’t the focal point of a room
- isn’t something I intend to keep for the next place of residence
- is likely to take a beating and get damaged anyway
- is an item where quality isn’t a big concern (for instance I wouldn’t put my 35″ TV on such a thing, but for the spare tucked in a corner it is just fine)
- a quality piece would bust the budget
What are your experiences with this type of purchase? Any exciting assembly stories or insights into the total cost of purchasing these do it yourself projects? If so, please join in by posting a comment below.
Initially Surfgirl and I bought them for their cheapness and we hated the aggrivation, but over time we have found that my strength matched with her ability to read the directions makes it much smoother.
We recently put together a dresser within 2 hours and it looks great. Of course we painted it to, but I don’t count that as we would have done that with whatever dresser we picked up.
Based on our experience with putting things together, we are now pretty good at eyeing products to determine if they are cheaply made or a real good deal.
We tend to have rotating furniture available somehow. We are avid curb rangers (or garbage pickers) and have gotten many medium quality pieces of furniture for free, but reuiring a bit of repair and attention. Since we have gotten so good at it, we have extra pieces around usually that we can rotate in if anything breaks or needs repurposing.
We have this excellent dresser/buffet thing we garbage picked last spring that we use in the dining room for our baby’s clothes and changing table. Once she’s too big to use it for a changing table, I have my sights on using this for table linens and office supplies- keeping it where it is.
One thing we never seem to keep a hold of though is coffee tables. They aren’t that great to have around with toddlers anyways- but somehow, whatever we find or purpose for a coffee table gets broken or ends up being more needed for some other task. Ultimately, I would actually want a tea table- a bit higher up and made much sturdier.
I’m good at reading the directions. Kim is good at lifting heavy stuff 🙂
As for how long it lasts, I bought my assembly-required entertainment center 10 years ago.
With our budget in mind, put-it-together-yourself furniture is about all we even consider. If it looks decent enough and serves its function, I’m not too picky. Other things in my life are more important to me than “real wood” furniture (wouldn’t water have damaged a “real wood” piece, too?).
I’ve got credit card debt to pay off!
Thanks for this website. It inspires me to come out more visibly in my blog.