He was wrong

Look what I built last night! I am in love with this clever creation from Mimosa. It slots together in a flash, like IKEA should in theory but never does in practice.

I bought two pieces – a one seater and a three seater – and connected them. I was keen for a corner lounge, but was having trouble finding one small enough for the depth of my balcony. Then I stumbled across the Mimosa Kirra modular lounge.

While it appeared to be THE ONE (well, the one at a halfway decent price, I am shocked by how much outdoor furniture costs), I couldn’t 100 per cent confirm online that it could be turned into an L-shaped lounge.

The Mimosa website and Bunnings website were both pretty scant on information.

The Bunnings website said: “Configures to fit any space, this modular Kirra 3-seater can be arranged in conjunction with other 1, 2, & 3-seater lounges to create a wide range of options to match your outdoor space. The sofas can be secured together by connectors to a create many different configurations.”

While this sounded fairly promising, there was also a certain vagueness to it and no photos online of the configurations. I didn’t want to haul the bits upstairs only to discover they wouldn’t do the job.

I decided I’d better go in store to try and clarify whether it was suitable. The exterior of the box was no help, so I was naughty and opened it up. As I was ferreting around inside it, a middle-aged male Bunnings employee raced over demanding to know what I was doing.

I explained that I was trying to check if the one seater and the three seater could be connected together to form an L-shaped lounge.

He emphatically informed me that they could not. He’d assembled many of the lounges in his time and the “modular” part simply referred to the fact you could put different arms on them.

Right.

So I queried why the website mentioned “connectors”. He said that was very odd and Bunnings definitely didn’t sell any.

Right.

So I waited until he’d bustled off and then I started ferreting around in the box again. I extracted the instructions, which were in a ziplock bag … with LOTS OF CONNECTOR PIECES.

Oh and a diagram on how to use them to configure various lounges.

That bloody know-it-all didn’t know anything at all.

In fact, I think he lied about putting lots of them together. if he’d assembled even one he’d have understood their capabilities.

Anyways, I ordered the one seater and three seater to be delivered to my apartment yesterday.

The delivery bloke turned up and asked where the lift was. When I told him there wasn’t one he said he could only take it to the ground floor and that the wrong type of delivery had been booked.

FFS. Not again.

I needed a two-man delivery. That had not been specified in store.

The delivery bloke was about to drive back to Bunnings with my stuff when I asked if he could put it in my garage instead.

Then, when the eldest arrived home with two friends I offered them dinner in exchange for hauling it upstairs.

It literally took me 10 minutes to assemble the sofa after I fed everyone. Woo hoo!

My verdict: while the person who designed this modular outdoor range is a genius, whoever does the Mimosa marketing is not.

I reckon they would sell a gazillion of these things if people understood how light, comfortable, easy to assemble and versatile they are.

Two thumbs up from me. And a middle finger to the mansplaining Bunnings bloke.

Song of the day: Chicago “Hard to say I’m sorry”