The Life and Times of a Navy Husband

Around about two years ago, shortly after Danielle and I moved into our current house, we purchased several pieces of furniture from IKEA, the dealer of choice for nomadic post-college twenty-somethings. Their products are attractively designed, and they’re cheap.

They’re also made out of shitty materials.

Our house in Newport is significantly bigger than our duplex in Norfolk was, and we had to outfit an entire living room. I’d long had an itch for a couple of nice big leather club chairs, and IKEA sold some nice ones—and a couch to match. Perfect! A whole living room for the price of what one couch would cost at Lay-Z-Boy!

Or, not so perfect. Just weeks after taking delivery of the couch and two chairs, we had a houseful of old friends visit for Thanksgiving (or, as we call it, Drunkfest, of which more later). At one point during the mischief-filled weekend, one of our friends flopped down onto an already crowded couch, and we heard a SNAP!. Her eyebrows shot up and her mouth made a surprised ‘O’ and everybody flew off the couch to see what had happened.

But we couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

After everyone left, we did notice that it seemed a little saggy on one side. Investigation revealed the horrors of the guts of an IKEA couch: MDF, plywood, pine, staples—all manner of substandard building materials.

One of the support beams had split diagonally, originating at the point at which it was bolted to another piece of the frame. I repaired it with wood glue and metal braces, and it was as good as new.

Until earlier this fall. One day, Danielle and I were sitting on the couch together, and we felt something ’shift.’ The front of the couch was sagging in the center. Over the weeks that followed, it eventually sagged to the floor.

So, after putting up with it for a while and using The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction to support the front crosspiece, I went into the guts again.

First I glued up the ‘tear’ in the MDF (medium-density fiberboard) that made up the crosspiece. MDF is basically sawdust and glue, from what I can tell.

Then I built a brace and attached a buttress.

Can I call it a buttress if it’s in a piece of furniture?

Finally, I stapled everything back together and attached the new center foot.

And we have a couch again!

But no, I won’t be buying anymore high-use furniture from IKEA, thank you very much. A couch needs to be there for me. It needs to be reliable. It needs a hardwood frame. It needs eight-way hand-tied springs…