I’m hysterical. After spending most of Saturday and then several hours today putting this goddam bed together… ONE DRAWER won’t fit. I think it might have something to do with the ONE SCREW that wouldn’t go into the base. In any case, it had better get fixed. Have already sent off a written complaint to IKEA and have contacted them on Twitter.

Why do we do this to ourselves? I’m guessing it must be like childbirth… between IKEA purchases we forget just how hellish the assembling bit was and then decide it is somehow worth not paying the extra 30 euros to have it done for us. I don’t even want to think of the hours I’ve spent doing this but the physical side-effects are hard to ignore. My lower back is in serious pain, hip joints are screaming, knees are bruised from crawling around on marble floor, and various muscles not used to being held in prolonged unnatural positions are adding to the misery. Other casualties include the bottle of wine I put in the freezer to fast-chill this afternoon while Peter and I fit the drawers. This was supposed to take about half an hour – NOT THREE – and of course the bottle exploded. And so instead of enjoying a nice glass of wine at the end of my labours whilst being pleased about my nice new bed looking LIKE THIS I am now drowning my sorrows with a bottle of cava I’d been saving for another occasion.

To be honest, this was the nicest bedframe I’d found – and the cheapest. So I should’ve just splashed out and had IKEA do the assembling. The other places included delivery and assembling but their prices were way higher. Lesson learned. I hope.