Furniture shuffling

When we first moved into our apartment almost four years ago, I don't think either of us really thought that we'd one day have to make space here for nursery furniture. For a while, we thought we'd probably live here for a year or two then move closer to mission bay once Shuyi stopped having classes at Parnassus. Then we thought maybe we'd buy a condo in the city before having kids. Well, with the rapid rise in rents a few years ago, the crazy real estate market and stock market crash the last year, we just couldn't give up the really good deal we have on our current place. Our rent has only increased $25 over the last 4 years and is probably now cheaper than a lot of 1-bedroom apartments around here with half the space.

Anyway, our second bedroom has always been our office. Neither bedroom is especially large, which is pretty typical of older places (they tend to have bigger living room/dining rooms, but smaller bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchens). With a couple of computer desks, a bookshelf, and a futon, our office was fully packed. In order to fit a crib in there, we'd definitely have to get rid of our futon. That was not terribly difficult as we sold it just one day after posting on craigslist.

In place of the futon, we now have our crib and a dresser for baby clothes. We're getting a changing table as well, but the one we like is on backorder so we'll have to wait another month for it. So over the last few weeks, I had been tasked with putting together the crib and the dresser.



Although relatively simple, the size of the crib made it slightly unwieldy to put together and so that took a bit longer than I had anticipated, but aside from the fact that there was a part missing for the crib drawer, it came together without much of a hitch.



The dresser was a bit tougher. While the instructions were pretty simple and intuitive, the number of screws (150+ by my count) and nails required made this task quite time consuming. The instruction booklet specifies how long each step should take. Personally, I thought those estimates were quite optimistic. For example, each drawer was supposed to take about 5 minute. I've never claimed to be a handyman, but the last few drawers still took me almost 15 minutes each. Granted, I didn't have all the tools that could have made the job faster, but still, those time estimates certainly made more feel even less handy than I believe myself to be. But alas, it's all done now and it will be a few years before I have to build any tree houses. (Which I'm hoping will be out of vogue as I'm not confident I could build one that is structurally sound.)