Okay, how about this way?

[davidgillon]

I ordered a new desk last week, the aim being to stop using my existing one in the back bedroom and instead have it in the lounge, right next to the french windows. This would mean replacing the TV stand that's already in that corner, and ideally my (largish) TV would become my new monitor - there's only me in the house so I'm unlikely to want to watch TV at the same time I'm using my laptop - and can just open up a window to BBC iPlayer/whatever if need be.

For an L-shaped desk it arrived in a startlingly small, if weighty, package - I was surprised when the delivery driver drove off, I'd assumed he was going back to his van for another box.

But everything seemed to be there when I opened it up, so I set about putting it together: three desk top sections, four shelves, 5 sets of legs/sides (two pedestals for one half, single side for the other), 4 crossbars, 8 bracing struts and a multitude of screws and bolts.

I think I can say it's a very clever design, it can go together in three different ways, but that flexibility means almost all of those parts are subtly different from each other: three different designs of legs/sides, three different designs of crossbars. And the only difference between them is that the holes are drilled in different places. The assembly drawings do show the holes, but they're very, very small.

Figuring out which was which was very irritating. But it did go together eventually, if with several left over screws.

And then right at the end I realised what I'd thought were QC Inspector stickers, were in fact labels to tell you which part was which. *headdesk*

But of course that's only the first half of the problem. The second half of the problem is how you arrange TV, laptop, DVD player, and the DVD player's surround-sound speakers. Straight on one way? Straight on the other way? Across the corner of the L? At what angle across the corner of the L? 

Let us say there have been multiple arrangements. And I'm still not sure that the current one is final.

(Plus several hours trying to get the laptop to talk to the TV without losing half the picture off the edges, and an eventual realisation I needed to change the TV settings, not the laptop)