The words ‘self assembly’ took on a deeper resonance for writer Greg Baxter when, during a sabbatical from work, he started buying Ikea furniture in preparation for fatherhood: he was also putting himself back together after some very dark times

In February 2009, I made several trips to Ikea in Belfast to prepare my house for the arrival of my first child. Some of these trips I made with my girlfriend, who was seven months pregnant, but most I made alone. I also spent a lot of time in Woodies buying fancy drills and saws and getting paint mixed. I even went to garden centres to buy pots, peat and flowers.

I had just finished a book I’d been writing for almost two years – the true story of my life in Dublin following the end of a long relationship. During those two years, I worked by day as a journalist and taught creative writing courses four nights a week. I needed the money: my mortgage costs – I bought at the height of the boom – were astronomical. I was also drinking six or seven nights a week and living without sleep. I regard, now, my book as the public assassination of the selfish and pusillanimous oversized boy I had become at the age of 32. And self-destruction was essential: it helped me carry out the assassination; and it was a celebration of a philosophy I wanted to embrace for the rest of my life – purification through failure.

It was a bit of a surprise to find this new self suddenly nesting, but there I was, walking around Ikea with a measuring tape and notebook, taking myself quite seriously, imagining with great pride a future of storage solutions, bookshelves and drilling things into walls. I was on a short sabbatical from work at the time, and I became, for about six glorious weeks, a handyman.

It began unexpectedly. I spent the first half of my sabbatical in Vienna, where I set the final chapter of my book. When I returned, I discovered that an outfitting of my house was underway – until then it had been nothing but a shell with three or four pieces of furniture. My girlfriend and her father had gone to Ikea for shelves, bathroom mirrors and a shower shield. Her father, who is an actual, honest-to-God handyman, had installed these. How had he drilled through tiles? Since I’d always detested physical labour, I thought I’d be happy to see someone doing this work for me. Instead, I felt like a bum.

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF THIS STORY IN THE JULY ISSUE OF THE GLOSS MAGAZINE, OUT NOW.