It was an epic battle between one man and one box of parts claiming to represent a coffee table. Though before it could begin, the first challenge was to figure out which box was the one to be battled.

Mrs J had bought several items of furniture online and wasn't sure which was which. I opened the tops of the boxes one at a time in order to peek inside, and eventually we found one that had "Coffee table" printed on an inner box. We agreed that this must be the one, so I carried it into the hallway, opened it, and began assessing the parts. I was aware that Mrs J had bought the new items to replace her old glass ones, which she deemed too dangerous in case she fell into them, so when I saw that this box contained parts for a glass coffee table, I thought I'd better check with her before I began assembling it. She had a look, and immediately realised that this was not at all the coffee table that she had intended to buy, so she went and found some parcel tape and I put everything back in the box and packaged it all up ready to be returned.

We resumed our search through the rest of the boxes and found another that we thought might be the one. Again I carried it through, opened it, and had a look at the contents. I found the instruction booklet and showed her the diagram on the front, and she said that yes, this was definitely the one. I'd been there for nearly an hour by this point, and it was finally time for the battle to commence!

As someone who used to work at Ikea, I like to think that I'm pretty savvy when it comes to building flat-pack furniture, but this item really was a challenge. There were many, many parts with many, many bolts and cams to attach them together. While some sections of the manual were clear, others were a complete mystery, so it took a lot of patience and determination to decrypt what on Earth it was trying to tell me. Luckily, Mrs J was in an adjacent room telling me all kinds of fascinating stories about her life and her family while I worked.

Three hours later (I probably shouldn't have stayed that long but I really wanted to see it through) after making the final adjustments to the runners of the table's slide-out top sections, the job was finally complete. Mrs J was incredibly grateful that I'd stayed so long and got it finished, and was very happy with the result. The only thing left to do was to remove the protective plastic coating from the high-gloss sections of the table, but she asked if I could leave that for her to do. No doubt she knows how satisfying it is!

I gathered my things (of course I'd brought my own favourite screwdriver), disposed of the packaging, and said goodbye to Mrs J. She has another smaller item that needs to be built, so no doubt another mission will appear in the coming days. I'm sure that one will be much more straightforward, so I hope nobody is put off after having read my report! It really was great to hear about her fascinating life, and was a very satisfying task.