Spent 3 hours on an Ikea shelf that said 45 minutes on the box

Last Saturday I decided to finally put up that floating shelf from Ikea that had been sitting in my closet for 2 months. The instructions said 45 minutes easy. 45 minutes my foot. First I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out why the bracket wouldn't slide on right, turns out I had it backwards. Then I drilled a hole and hit a metal pipe behind the drywall, which gave me a solid panic attack before I realized it was just an old electrical conduit that wasn't live. Had to go buy anchors that were actually rated for my wall type because the ones in the box were junk. By the time I got the shelf level and actually up on the wall, I had been at it for almost 3 hours. My wife came in, looked at it, and said "is that crooked?" and I almost lost it. Has anyone else had a simple project turn into a whole afternoon ordeal?

3 comments

3 Comments

jesse_williams6227d agoMost Upvoted

And the worst part is when you finally get it done and the whole time you're second guessing yourself on every step. Like that moment when the bracket finally slides on and you think you're golden, then you realize you gotta take it all down because the level says it's off by a quarter inch. I've had that exact same thing happen with a floating shelf where I had to redrill the bracket holes three times because the stud finder kept lying to me. Did you end up leaving it as is or did you go back and try to tweak it?

davis.ruby27d ago

Hearing you say you spent 3 hours on a 45 minute shelf makes me feel so much better about my own weekend disaster. That sinking feeling when you realize the bracket is backwards is just the worst, you already know you're in for a long day. The pipe scare would have sent me straight to the couch for a good 10 minutes to calm down, I don't blame you for panicking at all. And those anchors they pack in there are basically a joke, I think they just assume everyone's walls are made of marshmallow or something. Your wife's "is that crooked" comment is the kind of thing that makes you want to scream into a pillow, honestly I would have just nodded and walked away for a while. Sometimes you just gotta accept the shelf has "character" and call it a win.

cameronf8827d ago

Used to roll my eyes at people who said Ikea instructions are garbage, thought they just couldn't read a diagram. Then I did that same floating shelf last month and yeah, I get it now. The bracket system is so finicky, I had it flipped around for a solid 30 minutes before I noticed the little arrows on the back. And those anchors they give you are basically useless for anything but drywall that's like paper thin. Ended up making three trips to the hardware store because I kept buying the wrong size wall plugs. My shelf is still up but I swear it leans a tiny bit to the left and I just tell people it's "character" now.