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Dear Flipped,
I just got a new 42-inch TV and needed an adequately sized stand to support it. I looked into buying a new stand and they all seemed too expensive, so instead I took an old IKEA bookcase that mostly doesn't get used for much and I HACKED IT. I bent that bookcase to my will. What once was bookcase is now TV stand, and now nothing can stop me. I am power itself. The purpose of objects is determined not by their makers but by ME. I say what things are. Beds, nightstands, headboards, and chairs are nothing to me. I create them and I destroy them and I feel nothing. I determine existence. I am the architect. I am God.
Please stop me,
What Have I Become? in St. Paul
***
Dear WHIB,
Whoa there, guy. Take a few deep breaths. I've seen this happen before to first time IKEA hackers, and if you don't get that feeling under control posthaste, it might be too late to save you. First, throw out all your allen wrenches.
Now what you have to do is go to IKEA and buy the most boring, simple bookcase they have. Take it home. Assemble it according to the directions (and then throw out the allen wrench that came with it). Put it in the middle of your living room and just sit with it. Look at it. Accept it. Press yourself up against the bookcase and repeat this mantra:
This is a bookcase
This is a bookcase
This is a bookcase and I cannot change that
Do that over and over until you start to feel like yourself again. This was the same process we went through with my cousin after he turned his bed into a trundle bed. Unfortunately, it didn't take and she had to be committed, but oh well. You can't win 'em all.
Hope that helps,
Flipped
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