Last week we emptied, cleaned and repainted the room we are using as an office. The old paint was damaged due to shelves that had been mounted to the walls which had brought parts of the wallpapers when the previous owners removed them, plus that you saw the drill holes. We opted to use the same colour that we previously used when repainting the entrance. Unfortunately we (I) underestimated how much paint we had left from last time and bought a nine litre box of paint. The paint we had left was just enough, so now we are left with nine litres of “caffe latte” paint.

Newly painted (and empty) office.

Since we had thrown out the old office furniture we needed to assemble the new IKEA furniture we bought this summer and that was delivered two weeks ago. We had ordered a desk with accompanying drawer unit, as well as a two-level office shelf. It is the same kind of desk and shelves that I have at my work, except that we went for the darker beech veneer instead of the lighter birch veneer we have there.

Assembling the “Effektiv” shelf.

It is always as exciting to assemble IKEA furniture — did we receive all parts? Do we have the proper screwdriver? Is it possible to follow the instruction booklet? I have to commend IKEA for making assembly instructions that they do not need to translate, they contain almost no text whatsoever except for “IKEA” and the name of the piece of furniture.

Assembly instructions, IKEA style.

In any case, the end result was good, even though the desk perhaps is a bit on the large side, it is at least quite dominating. We had checked the measurements to ensure that it would fit, both with a simple sketch on squared paper, and with IKEA’s own office planner, a computer program we downloaded and modelled the room in.

Using that tool was actually quite a good idea, both since we could get a three-dimensional view showing what it would look like, but especially since we could print a list of what to buy. Coming to IKEA already having a list of what pieces you need is definitely an advantage if you want to come out with the right stuff.

Thea assembling the desk.

Now we got exactly what we had asked for and needed, no parts were missing, and we even had a couple of extra screws in the end, and the final result was actually quite good. Now all we need to do is to get all the things back into the room, so that we can start using it again, and “reclaim” the living room. But first I am going to get my new mobile phone that, according to the Post office” package tracking service, is waiting for me at my local post office. Finally.

The desk fully assembled.