Dear Martha,
Have you ever put together one of your shelving units? Inspired, as always, by the lovely picture both in the catalogue and on the side of the box, I bought a nine-cube Martha Stewart shelving unit. I pulled the pieces out of the box and got to work on the simple, easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions. Some parts went well...
Nearing the end of assembly, I saw that I still had sixty teeny, tiny nails to hammer in. Sixty! Wow, this shelf was not going to fall apart on me. At least those really flimsy cardboard backing plates weren't going to fall off. Granted, the nails were small - clearly designed for delicate work. Like hammering teeny, tiny nails through cardboard into extremely thin, fake wood partitions. Hammers are not really delicate. Twice, Martha, I hammered right through the edge of the fake wood partition and watched as my teeny, tiny nail caused the material around it to crumble, flake off, or otherwise disintegrate. This, into the rather visible front-facing cube. I know this wouldn't happen to you. And I doubt you would be sweating profusely after nail thirty-seven either. Why so many nails, Martha?
Eventually, I completed the shelf. Well, almost completed. Those lovely little screw covers don't seem to actually fit. I tried simply pressing them on, as the instructions urged me to do. No luck. With stomach-clenching trepidation I actually attempted to hammer one on, fully aware of the consequences should my hammer strike an errant blow. Still, no luck. Perhaps I'm just not strong enough to secure those decorative baubles so I will wait for my husband to affix them (although, once again, I don't think you intended for them to be so tricky).
My final question is this: why do you use over-sized props in your picture? It might cause an unsuspecting consumer to believe their new nine-cube Martha Stewart shelving unit will actually hold games or other larger items that are clearly too big for the rather smallish real-life version of said shelving unit.
Sincerely,
A merely curious fan.
I bought two of the exact same shelving units.
ReplyDeleteThe number of teeny-tiny nails was definitely overkill. I misjudged the location of two of those screws with the same outcome as you.
I also had the exact same problem with the screw covers. And I asked Jason to try to do it as well. He did 6 then gave up. Regardless of force, they just don't seem to fit. If Scott does succeed in getting those things on, he deserves a metal.
Our puzzle boards and trucks overhang the bottom shelf. Shame on you Martha. Shame.
Sounds like Martha is not all she is cracked up to be....sorry to hear about your plight. You should actually send this letter to her.
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