I hated to do it, but I just ordered some ready-to-assemble furniture. Do I feel guilty? Nope, because it’s saving me valuable time.

According to the media, we have bags of time right now. We have challenging times, difficult times, trying times, stressful times, taxing times and, of course, uncertain times. With all that time on our hands we should be able to get anything done, right?

Unfortunately, that’s not how it’s working out. (Cue the announcer: “In these unworkable times…”)

The fact is, being self-employed from home I’m not idled by the continuing shutdown of normal life, but my wife is. So, she’s using her free time to set up an exercise area in her section of the basement that’s turning out quite nice, actually. She sent away for exercise mats, retrieved a small bookcase from storage to use there, hung up posters and has generally created a very nice space.

But she likes to do workout videos and we don’t currently own a piece of furniture that can hold an old TV we’ve also had stored away. I’m wrapping up some projects to hit a deadline, and just can’t break away from them to make her a TV stand myself.

So, I went online and bought a small entertainment center. It was inexpensive (and will probably prove to be cheap in other ways), undoubtedly made of particleboard, and isn’t something you’d want in your living room. But it’ll do for a basement exercise room.

I’m sure I’ll curse my way all the way through assembling it as I absolutely abhor cheap RTA furniture, but it will accomplish the task, look OK in its intended location, make Sally happy and keep her out of my woodshop and, most importantly, it won’t significantly impact me (cue the announcer) in these busy times.