Box-O-Chaos Project

In my shop, some projects get completed almost as soon as I think of them, while others need to wait. Some wait a long, long time. This one has been waiting for 10 years.

Here's the back story:

We used to live in Bend OR. When it was time to move back to Alaska, we packed every cubic inch of both our vehicles, had a major yard sale, and packed everything else into the maximum allowable size boxes and mailed them. We had been going great guns for several days to be out on schedule, and some things just kept slipping through the cracks.

The afternoon of our departure I realized that there was a rocking chair just sitting there in the living room. How had we missed that? There was no way it could get added to the "take along" list. There was absolutely no room in the cars (none - I'm surprised we could breathe in there), and all possible space on top of the cars was already full. I didn't want to leave it, because while it might not be a great piece of furniture, it was the first furniture we had bought together as a couple. Nope, it had to make it to Alaska. All I had to do was disassembled it, with no tools (packed), get it to fit into the last remaining box, and make it to the post office before they closed (20 minutes). No problem.

So, I gently took that chair apart on the front lawn using a Swiss Army knife and a hunk of firewood as a club. I shoved it into the box and handed it over to the USPS with at least three minutes to spare. Then it was North to Alaska!

Back to the present:

As I am moving great heaps of stuff around in the garage I find myself looking at a large, unopened cardboard box. I was wondering what it could be, when two thoughts hit me in quick succession. First, it's got to be the missing rocker. Second, I could fix it up for a Christmas present for my wife.

So I open the box and this is what I see:


Wow. Looks like someone smashed a chair apart with a piece of firewood or something.

Oh, but wait, it's not that bad. I found the original fasteners randomly floating around in the bottom of the box.


Okay, so I've got my work cut out for me. This is going to be close - wish me luck.

PS - Just to avoid any confusion, this rocker-in-a-box should in no way be confused with the other rocker-in-a-box project I have in the hopper. They are very different. For one thing, that one is actually in three boxes. For another, it has only been sitting in the shop for slightly more than one year. And finally, that rocker is from Oregon, while this one is from... never mind.