My Helmer in red!

I’ve been eyeing up a drawer unit for the office for some time. It was on my Christmas list but sadly didn’t make it to “under the tree“.

So, once I spotted my Ikea Helmer drawer unit up as a $1 reserve auction on TradeMe there was no stopping me!

Actually it was Mr that went click happy bidding while I put the little one to bed (he refuses to have Daddy do it at the moment for some reason…).

At $157 it was a bit of a saving from the $219 retail from My Flat Pack as mentioned here.

After I picked it up one morning earlier this week I was determined to have it all assembled and in use before Mr got home! Because afternoon sleeps now include myself I had to do it with the little one running around and risk losing screws to his “helpful” nature. He’s been telling me this week he’s a “good helper!” Hmmm…

Anyway, we got started, down on the floor and first up was this:

A rather daunting multipage assembly instruction booklet. Not to mention the 101 pieces that had to come together into one unit!

Anyway, as a graphic designer I figure I should be as good as any at following pictorial instructions so we just got on with it… base, drawer runners and sides took all of 10 minutes (in the background you can see the sad old desk drawers that have stuck by me since I was a little girl, the handles were even once pink!):

Then the back just clicked on:

Then I ran into a bit of trouble when screws got involved… for the life of me I couldn’t get 11 out of 12 screws to move.

 So I started making up the drawers (which involved a lot of folding, clicking and bending of tabs, and thankfully the handles screwed on nicely):

I popped one into the upside-down unit to get an idea of how it would all come together, and there it stayed until Mr came home and said “oh you just need to cut the thread”… which sounds all very easy but pretty much just means drive them in with all your might (of which I didn’t have much after over an hour on the hard wooden floor…)

And here they are, minus any contents because I just haven’t got there yet…

 Because they have wheels they are so much fun to push around the lounge but I’ve been telling our little guy they are “Mummy’s special drawers – no touching!” So attached to them already and I haven’t even started using them!

I am also on the lookout for a similar set of a more vintage style as a contrast. Please let me know if you spot any! Here’s the sketch of the office originally posted here, to refresh your memory of my dream space (I’m a storage and stationery geek… what can I say!)

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