F is for friends who build flat pack together...

U is for "Ugh! Where's that screw?!"

N is for Newham at 10:30 this morning, not quite in the deep blue sea (although it was raining so much when we left that it certainly felt like it!)

Today I joined Newham regulars Siobhan and Hilary (Hilary's first mission!) in helping to disassemble an old wardrobe and assemble some new furniture for Mr C.

I was pretty excited about this mission because I genuinely love building flat pack (it's like grown up Meccano!) I even brought along my trusty toolkit just in case (as did Hilary - GG-ers are awesome! 😎)

Before we introduced ourselves to Mr C, we made a rough plan of action for how we were going to attack the task based on the info we already had. As the council is due to collect the old wardrobe next week, we decided to prioritize disassembling the old wardrobe first, before assembling some of the furniture in two groups.

It all went pretty much as planned, although we weren't able to get everything done despite staying for the full 3 hours.

Making quick work of disassembling the old wardrobe, we split up into our two groups: Hilary and Siobhan worked on the new wardrobe while I took on a bedside cabinet. Mr C also kindly brought us some squash to keep us going while we worked. He was looking forward to having new furniture as his old wardrobe was destroyed following a flood (you can still see traces of the flood in the ceiling of the main photo).

Hilary and Siobhan made a good stab at the new wardrobe, but had to leave it at step 22 (it has the shape of a wardrobe!) Hilary made the great suggestion of making sure that at least the rail was up so that Mr C could hang some clothes, while Siobhan suggested marking the instruction sheet so that the next GG-ers would know what point they'd got up to. I always think that my fellow GG-ers are awesome when they're practical like this 😄

I managed to get one of the bedside cabinets assembled while chatting with Mr C about all the different areas of London he's lived in over the years. I was slightly concerned about the number of fastenings left after my cabinet was assembled (notice the possessive article), but as everything seemed to be working ok I decided that the manufacturer had simply changed their mind about how it was supposed to be assembled. After all, what is a flat pack assembly without a handful of unused fastenings left at the end?! 😅

Our time drawing to a close, we took a couple of pictures for the mission report and said our goodbyes.

I'm certain we all enjoyed this task (I know that I'd like to do it again purely so that I can make the second cabinet in super quick time!) Hopefully a new mission for the remainder of this task can be organised soon 😄 Congrats on your first mission Hilary!