I knew I had turned the corner with my fear of DIY a few weekends ago when I assembled my first ever piece of Ikea furniture.

I had initially looked at the bits and pieces that I was supposed to arrange into a TV table with suspicion and feared it would turn out back to front with the handles on the wrong way if it was left to me.

The only thing that motivated me to continue was the idea that it would be more useful to me that way than in the brown flat-pack box that it had been sitting in for the past two months.

DIY is not easy if you're a woman who has never used a power tool in her life. I gathered all the pieces of the TV table together and felt slightly panicked by the variety of screws that such a simple piece of furniture required. Which one went in which hole?

A friend had told me that Ikea's stuff was dead simple to assemble and I had told her I was attempting my first assembly so I had my pride to lose if I didn't get this table up and running by the end of the day.

My mum had come round to give me support but even she cowered as I tried to make sense of the diagrams on the instruction manual and said she'd make the tea instead as her arthritis was playing up. Yeah, right mum.

An hour later, I was staring at a beautiful, perfectly-constructed table and feeling like I had just discovered a hidden talent.

A day later, I stared at my bedroom, full to the brim of forlorn-looking flat-pack debris, waiting to be assembled.

I have now successfully put together an L-shaped sofa, a nest of THREE tables, and a Japanese bed.

I made another visit to Ikea last night, feeling pretty cocky this time, looking at even the most complicated of wardrobes as if I could take them on with the confidence of a power-tool slinging pro.

I have a glorious week of flat-pack assembly before me, and I am itching to transform my newly-acquired folding dining table and mega-shelving system into three-dimensional reality.

Having bought my flat five months ago and depending on the most undependable of men to transform my hovel into a beautiful home - which has included a roll-call of cowboy builders, runaway plasterers and kitchen fitters who got the kitchen dimensions all wrong and didn't turn up for a week - I have bought an electric drill, found out how to switch it on, and the formerly intimidating world of B&Q and Wicks is now my oyster.