The first thing that I had to do was to remove the sleeper couch installed at the rear of the RV, something that I knew I would have very little use for in the future. I stripped off the cushions and any removable parts and by extending the bed partly open, was able to get the unit loose from the floor which as it turns out was a relatively simple task of undoing a few screws. I should mention that I previously watched a video of a couple who had removed their sofa/sleeper bed and it was too big to get out of the RV doorway. They ended up taking a chainsaw to the couch and cutting it into little pieces but I didn’t think that I would need to do anything that drastic. Turns out, I was right as with a lot of very careful manoeuvring, I got it out through the RV door and onto the ground outside without, I might add, damaging either the couch or the RV although it didn’t do my back much good. As it happens, my new next door neighbor and his very large friend happened to stop by and volunteered to put the couch into the garage saving me the work. With step one complete, the next thing was to locate a desk.

I started off by taking a trip to the closest Office Depot to get an idea of what might be available in the way of desks that appealed to me. They had several on the floor already set up but none that would fit my needs. So, after returning home, I went on line to see what they might have in stock but not on the floor and found a couple that might work. According to the information, there was one available in the store located twenty or so miles away and so the next day and not about to let that deter me, I jumped into my truck and made the drive. As it happens, this store had one set up on the floor of the type that I wanted so I was able to take a look at it before making up my mind. With the help of a young, large and strong sales clerk, we were able to load it into the back of my truck and I made the trip home.

Getting the box off the truck turned out to be a whole different ball game and although I was able to drag it off and lower it to the ground, that was the sum extent of my being able to move the box in it’s complete state any further. The box measured roughly 60 inches long by 36 inches wide and 6 inches deep and probably weighed well over a 160 pounds. I had no alternative other than to break it open in the driveway and carry it into the RV, piece by piece. Altogether there are approximately around 75 different pieces that make up the desk which meant a lot of trips. I finally got it all stowed away and deemed that to be enough work for one day.

That evening, I carefully read the assembly instructions and it seemed straightforward enough to handle although, some aspects were not very clear. I figured they would make more sense as we were underway and started work the next day. In theory, I would be assembling two separate end cabinets each containing three drawers and then joining them together by other pieces like the back and the top. I should mention that was a multitude of hardware pieces along with bags of screws and other such stuff each supposedly labelled to match the diagrams. Needless to say, sometimes these were not very clear resulting in several very frustrating moments. At one point, I had to jump back into the truck and go to the closest Office Depot which is only five or so miles away to get them to show me how to separate the drawer slides as it would not happen by following the instructions. At the same time, they had included three different pieces of one part and only one of the other when it should have been two and two. Luckily, the people at this Office Depot were very accommodating and found me a part and also showed me how to separate the drawer slides.

To date, it has been slow progress but I have finally reached the stage of the where the desk is almost fully assembled. Yesterday, I managed to put on the top although, of course, it too didn’t go smoothly as I could not get it to sit down on the screws. Closer inspection showed me that I had a wood dowel where a lock screw was supposed to be preventing the top from fitting properly. Upon rectifying that mistake, the desk top sat right down on the unit. With the bigger pieces, it would help if I had another person to do some of the lifting not so much because of the weight but because of the awkwardness in doing it by oneself. As there is only me and two little dogs who I am sure, would help if they could, I struggled on using my British ingenuity to find ways to make things work. It’s amazing what can be accomplished when the need arises.
More to follow…

Written 12/02/2020