I've been thinking about remodeling my study/home office for a while--since last year, in fact. I've checked new office furniture online and at local stores, invited some home office/closet specialist to measure and estimate, and thought about how to get rid of all the clunky old desk and chairs, bookcases and file cabinets, computer and phones and accessories... But procrastination combined with "do-you-really-want-to-go-thru-such-trouble" second-thinking kept me from acting.
I finally decided to semi-force myself into the "Move-It!" mode the other day: I took a picture of the two main items I wanted to retire--the desk and file cabinet--and put them on Craigslist.com for sale for a meager $40. Within the next two days I got 4 or 5 takers. One woman (most Craigslist shoppers are women, I have found out) offered to come by, as well as a guy who said he lived in the same town and could pick up the furniture that same day. Having been confirmed that I could get rid of my old furniture with relative ease, I wanted to see if I could move more of them out faster than I originally planned. So when the woman came to inspect the furniture and said she would take them (with the help of her son moving), I asked if she'd like to take some other stuff I have--a printer stand, another file cabinet, two bookcases--as well. She declined, so I told her I'll hold the desk and file cabinet for her unless I found someone who would take not only the desk and file cabinet but also my other stuff. On that same afternoon, when the other guy came over to inspect the desk and file cabinet and said he wanted them, I showed him the other furniture and allured him with a low price, and he said he would take them too. So fortunately for me and unfortunately for the woman, I not only sold the desk and file cabinet, but all the other furniture to the guy (Mike) for a total sum of $80. He wanted to haul them all away that day, but I told him he'll have to wait until I get my new furniture, which will be sometime next week. He agreed but asked me to draft a simple purchasing agreement to secure the deal. I did and he gave me $40 for deposit and I promised to call him as soon as I have my new furniture in.
I then went online and ordered a set of new furniture that I had long researched and decided on from Staples, a collection of an L-shaped desk, a hutch, one credenza, one lateral file cabinet, and one bookcase, for a total of around $1400, estimated to arrive the next Tuesday.
Now I needed to hire someone to assemble them--Living in America means some general assembly skill is required of any normal functioning body and I had done my share of assembling with numerous furniture pieces and exercise equipment before, but to do all 5 pieces at one time, I'd rather put my money in good use and delegate it to someone who would excel on that. So I called Staples furniture assembly hotline for quote. They told me for them to send someone to my home to assemble all those 5 pieces will cost me $375 plus tax, to the tune of around $400.
That's a bit hefty to me. So I went online to Craigslist again. Now I have sold quite some stuff through Craigslist throughout the years (indoor/outdoor furniture, barbeque grill, etc.), but have never used any of the self-advertising services there. I went to the web site and looked under the Services section, clicked on the Household category, and did a keyword search for "assembly." Lo and behold, there did come up a few advertisements offering furniture assembling service. I picked a couple and sent them email describing what I needed and asked for quote.
The next day I got a reply from a guy saying he can assemble all 5 pieces for $100.
Now I needed to shop for hardwood floor, to replace my 20+-year-old carpet in the room. There are hardwood floor sales flyers and ads every week from/on LA Times. I picked a couple of them to visit on Saturday, almost made my decision at the second store except I couldn't make up my mind on the wood selection. On Sunday I visited another store, and with more choices there and better knowledge than I had a day ago, and because I liked the pleasant saleswoman there better than the pushy salesman I met the day before, I cut a deal with her and she came over Monday to do the measurement and I paid the deposit for the work scheduled to be done later that week.
The new furniture did arrive on Tuesday as promised--though with one piece missing that was redelivered Wednesday. So I called Mike to come over to pick up the old furniture Wednesday. He came in the afternoon with a guy helper. Within an hour, they skillfully disassembled the old furniture, moved them downstairs piece by piece, heaved them into their two pick-up trucks, without dropping, hitting, or a scratching on the wall. No wonder--In my chatting with him afterwards I found out they are in security alarm installation business and are expanding to set up a new office around here. He paid me the remaining $40 and I threw in (got rid of) a fullback leather chair to him for free.
Now I had a fully empty office room to myself (except for those file folders and wires and cables and miscellaneous accessories in boxes and bags laying on the floor). My original plan was to have the wood floor installed first, to take advantage of the obstruction free situation, then assemble and install the new furniture on the new floor. However, the earliest the flooring company could have their workers come over was Friday morning. So a change of plan was in order. I emailed/called the Craigslist guy to come in Thursday to install the new furniture. He (Doug) showed up on time at 9 AM, a handsome, well built 30 something white guy. I showed him those boxes of furniture laying on the downstair floor, and he immediately got on to work, non-stop, not even for a lunch break, for the rest of the day, untill 7PM, finishing up only 4 pieces of the furniture, though. Poor guy, he had grossly under-estimated the job, I thought to myself while working at my computer--thanks to wireless technology, I was able to move my laptop to the other room and continued working from there without disruption--while he's busy tightening up nuts and bolts, legs and panels, rails and drawers, all the fun pieces of furniture together. I chatted with him later, "This is more than what you think would take (he originally told me it would take him about 3 or 4 hours to finish the job), right?" He seemed a bit embarrassed, but shrugged and said, "A deal is a deal." I liked the honesty and the way he worked, so I said I'll give him $150 instead of $100. He wanted to continue into the night to finish the job, but I told him he'd better come back the next day as we needed to go out for a dinner party that night.
The next day, Friday morning, the floor installers did come on time at 9 AM. They were two Mexican guys, one 30-ish, the other 20-ish. The 30-something seemed to be the lead man and spoke some English. After verifying the order and the physical dimensions, the 30-something left and the 20-something started working. Like yesterday with the furniture installman, I continued to work in the next room while letting him do his at the office room. About half an hour into his work, though, I started hearing him speaking and laughing into his mobile phone, pretty hilariously at times, perhaps having a fun time with his girl friend, I could only guess, because it's all in Spanish. I thought it would let up soon, but instead it kept going on and on, with even more hilarious laughters, interspersed with the vehement banging of his hammer on my floor. I began to worry such phone distraction may affect his work quality and prolong the job--I had scheduled Doug to come in that afternoon to finish the furniture installation. So I went over and did a soft check on him: "Could you tell me when you think you can finish the job today?" I smiled and asked. He was caught a bit surprised by my intrusion, mobile phone still at hand, and seemed genuinely having difficulty understanding my English. After figuring out what I said, he told me in broken English that it should be completed no later than 2 PM that day.
It actually took him till 3 PM to finish the job. But granted this was a smart, capable young man I had here. I was happy with what I saw: neat, elegant looking wood floor just as I imagine it would be. So I gladly paid off the remaining balance and wrote down "Great job!" on the survey paper they were required to ask the customers to fill out at the end of the job.
Doug appeared on time again at 3 PM to start assembling the last and biggest piece of the furniture, the L-shaped desk. Again it took him well into the evening to finish it, and I needed to help him at the end to heave the hutch onto the desk, as well as move the finished furniture around to their right places. I checked the drawers, cabinets, doors, they moved smoothly, aligned perfectly, and no scraches, no dents. This was really a hefty and delicate job, requiring both muscle and brains. I was glad I didn't try to do it myself.
I ended up giving him $180 for the job, the extra $30 in the name of asking him a favor of hauling those empty shipping boxes and debris away for me. He glady accepted the money and diligently pulled and loaded the trash onto his jeep/SUV while Linda and I drove away to another dinner meeting under the sunset...
Operation OONI (Old-furniture Out, New-furniture In) all done, within one week!
PS #1: It just happened that our small group's recent discussion touched on the subject of how the US economy is consumer driven and what would be considered "good" consumption and what not, etc. Well, a modest expense of around $3000 to upgrade a 24-year-old home office that helped create direct jobs for two workers ought not be considered too bad a consumption in this economy, I don't think :) The only little quirky regret I have, though, has to do with a thought I had while thinking about hiring someone to do the furniture assembling: How about that fine young man of my cross-street neighbor's that I only had occasional short chats with through the years. What if I asked him to come over and help me put the furniture together so we can spend time together chatting and working and get to know each other better, and then I give him $200 for the help to help him out a bit on school expenses, his remote control electronics hobby, etc.?
I struck down that idea because deep down in my mind I knew this won't work if my goal is to have the new furniture assembled the fastest and most professional way possible, which unfortunately is what I was after. It seems that in this busy busy world we live in today, we/I value quick, "professional" result over slow, "unprofessional" process, even though that process itself might potentially be a meaningful one.
PS #2: If you have been reading through this borderline over-sharing piece up this point, I guess you probably won't mind seeing some pictures of this new office I've been blasting about, so here they are:
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