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avevale_intelligencerSo back in the New Year we decided to fulfil one of the Countess's long-felt wants, and replace the kang in the studio with a folding bed-settee. It was necessary for reasons of space that this contraption should fold along the longitudinal axis (i.e. turn into a bed running parallel to the wall it was against rather than perpendicular) and we decided on the "Tennessee" futon from Argos.
Well, apologies to the flourishing Japanese community in Tennessee, but it was useless. The long bars along the front were made from two pieces of wood joined together in a sort of zig-zag line, the join being unsupported by any form of leg when the futon was in bed configuration. Several of the pieces in important load-bearing positions had huge great knots in which did not improve their structural integrity, and to cut a long story short--
ENTIRE FLIST: Too late.
--four months later it had broken in three places. Argos replaced the first bit that got broken, but somehow didn't quite manage to arrange for the replacement of the other two bits, and the futon continued in use propped up by piles of books on which we kept stubbing our toes, thus reducing their market value considerably, not that I'd ever sell them, but you know. Finally we called them again and asked them to collect the failed item and supply us instead, at an extra cost of £££, the "Melbourne" clic-clac sofa bed, the only other one in the catalogue we could find that unfolded the same way and looked like a more serious item of furniture.
Which brings us to today, the designated date for collection and delivery.
I dismantled the futon in record time and ferried the bits downstairs. Promptly at oneish an Argos lorry turned up, and the men on board, rather surprised to be confronted with seventeen bits instead of the three they were expecting, nonetheless loaded them on to their van, disembarked the replacement bed, parked it in the hall and bogged off, leaving me to contemplate the stairs, with their sharp turn at the top, the large reclining chair that had been blocking the hall since my brother left it there last year, and the big yellow sign on the package saying "TWO PERSON HANDLING." I was expecting boxes of bits as before, you see, not a complete item weighing half a hectogram.
Gamely, I removed the packaging as best I could, removed the mattress and cover and took them upstairs, and tried to lift the frame. Which promptly went clic-clac and wedged itself between the wall, the chair, the banister, and me.
At this point the Countess came out to see what was happening and found me imprisoned at the bottom of the steps and in the throes of a panic attack. Taking charge in that wonderful way that women have when men mess up, she managed to negotiate my freedom, and under her direction I was able to get the thing down the hall and through the door to the living room which, also at her suggestion, I had cleared a space in. And as I was setting it down in said space, having made its point, it uttered a demure clic-clac and flattened itself out again.
(I would like to make it clear that my attempting to do the thing solo was by no means prompted by masculine pride or any other sexist crap, but by the fact that of the two of us, I have the body with the functioning nerve endings all the way down, the longer limbs and the slightly better power-to-weight ratio. I also see better. The fact that I am an incompetent moron doesn't usually arise in the case of self-assembly furniture, which is designed specifically for such as me. But I digress.)
At this point one of my brain cells unexpectedly rounded a corner and couldn't get away in time to avoid colliding soggily with the other one. I looked at the kang (home-made, easily dismantlable, proven to be sleepable-on by Countesses, Marions and Magicians, to name but three) and the new bed (evil, fiendish, doubtless e'en now hatching its next hideous scheme to entrap my fingers halfway up the stairs). I made my suggestion to the Countess, who had of course already thought of it, and five minutes later I was schlepping the bits of the kang up the stairs to reassemble in the studio. It's a little known fact that MDF is composed in part of neutronium...but I got them up there eventually, only entrapping my fingers once halfway up the stairs, and reassembled the kang in the space intended for the bed.
Now all I had to do was move all the things that had been stored under the kang, run the Dyson over the filth-encrusted floor beneath (how long the dead slow-worm had been there I do not wish to speculate), bring the mattress and cover down again and swivel the new bed round to take the kang's place. It was at this point that we discovered the two-inch rip in the fabric of the cover, which had definitely not been caused by anything I had done. Two minutes after that, the Countess sat down on it in sofa mode and it tipped forward and deposited her on the floor. Its fate was sealed.
So, now we're waiting for Argos to call us back with another collection date, and wondering if there's anywhere else we can get a double sofa bed that unfolds longitudinally, that is preferably made of whole bits of something capable of taking the weight of two largish human beings, and that we can inspect before we buy. I've looked at furniture stores in Trowbridge with no success. We are also both aching all over, above and beyond the normal background ache that stems from whatever is wrong with us, and very disappointed with Argos' furniture department.
On the bright side, while I was doing all this, the Countess also had me move the useless broken electric fireplace out of the hall on to the front porch preparatory to finding out how we get rid of it, bring the aforementioned large reclining chair in to replace the one I usually slump in, and replace it in the hall with that one's counterpart which I broke last year or the year before. Which I guess is progress. Kind of.
Just....ow.
Well, apologies to the flourishing Japanese community in Tennessee, but it was useless. The long bars along the front were made from two pieces of wood joined together in a sort of zig-zag line, the join being unsupported by any form of leg when the futon was in bed configuration. Several of the pieces in important load-bearing positions had huge great knots in which did not improve their structural integrity, and to cut a long story short--
ENTIRE FLIST: Too late.
--four months later it had broken in three places. Argos replaced the first bit that got broken, but somehow didn't quite manage to arrange for the replacement of the other two bits, and the futon continued in use propped up by piles of books on which we kept stubbing our toes, thus reducing their market value considerably, not that I'd ever sell them, but you know. Finally we called them again and asked them to collect the failed item and supply us instead, at an extra cost of £££, the "Melbourne" clic-clac sofa bed, the only other one in the catalogue we could find that unfolded the same way and looked like a more serious item of furniture.
Which brings us to today, the designated date for collection and delivery.
I dismantled the futon in record time and ferried the bits downstairs. Promptly at oneish an Argos lorry turned up, and the men on board, rather surprised to be confronted with seventeen bits instead of the three they were expecting, nonetheless loaded them on to their van, disembarked the replacement bed, parked it in the hall and bogged off, leaving me to contemplate the stairs, with their sharp turn at the top, the large reclining chair that had been blocking the hall since my brother left it there last year, and the big yellow sign on the package saying "TWO PERSON HANDLING." I was expecting boxes of bits as before, you see, not a complete item weighing half a hectogram.
Gamely, I removed the packaging as best I could, removed the mattress and cover and took them upstairs, and tried to lift the frame. Which promptly went clic-clac and wedged itself between the wall, the chair, the banister, and me.
At this point the Countess came out to see what was happening and found me imprisoned at the bottom of the steps and in the throes of a panic attack. Taking charge in that wonderful way that women have when men mess up, she managed to negotiate my freedom, and under her direction I was able to get the thing down the hall and through the door to the living room which, also at her suggestion, I had cleared a space in. And as I was setting it down in said space, having made its point, it uttered a demure clic-clac and flattened itself out again.
(I would like to make it clear that my attempting to do the thing solo was by no means prompted by masculine pride or any other sexist crap, but by the fact that of the two of us, I have the body with the functioning nerve endings all the way down, the longer limbs and the slightly better power-to-weight ratio. I also see better. The fact that I am an incompetent moron doesn't usually arise in the case of self-assembly furniture, which is designed specifically for such as me. But I digress.)
At this point one of my brain cells unexpectedly rounded a corner and couldn't get away in time to avoid colliding soggily with the other one. I looked at the kang (home-made, easily dismantlable, proven to be sleepable-on by Countesses, Marions and Magicians, to name but three) and the new bed (evil, fiendish, doubtless e'en now hatching its next hideous scheme to entrap my fingers halfway up the stairs). I made my suggestion to the Countess, who had of course already thought of it, and five minutes later I was schlepping the bits of the kang up the stairs to reassemble in the studio. It's a little known fact that MDF is composed in part of neutronium...but I got them up there eventually, only entrapping my fingers once halfway up the stairs, and reassembled the kang in the space intended for the bed.
Now all I had to do was move all the things that had been stored under the kang, run the Dyson over the filth-encrusted floor beneath (how long the dead slow-worm had been there I do not wish to speculate), bring the mattress and cover down again and swivel the new bed round to take the kang's place. It was at this point that we discovered the two-inch rip in the fabric of the cover, which had definitely not been caused by anything I had done. Two minutes after that, the Countess sat down on it in sofa mode and it tipped forward and deposited her on the floor. Its fate was sealed.
So, now we're waiting for Argos to call us back with another collection date, and wondering if there's anywhere else we can get a double sofa bed that unfolds longitudinally, that is preferably made of whole bits of something capable of taking the weight of two largish human beings, and that we can inspect before we buy. I've looked at furniture stores in Trowbridge with no success. We are also both aching all over, above and beyond the normal background ache that stems from whatever is wrong with us, and very disappointed with Argos' furniture department.
On the bright side, while I was doing all this, the Countess also had me move the useless broken electric fireplace out of the hall on to the front porch preparatory to finding out how we get rid of it, bring the aforementioned large reclining chair in to replace the one I usually slump in, and replace it in the hall with that one's counterpart which I broke last year or the year before. Which I guess is progress. Kind of.
Just....ow.
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