Oof, dump the chair on the curb and get the beanbag. A $9 chair that your friend side-eyes after 10 minutes is just a back injury waiting to happen.

Wait, 40 birdhouses and he never went past 150 grit?

Why did you just toss it straight in without looking at the drawer even once though? I'm not judging because I did the exact same thing with my dishwasher for like two months, kept pouring the rinse stuff right on the door and wondering why my glasses came out cloudy. The thing that gets me about your story is the drawer popping open on its own, because if mine did that I would have torn the whole machine apart trying to figure out why instead of reading the book. Did you ever think to just pull the manual out when you first noticed it acting up, or did you just assume new machines are cheap junk now? I feel like we all do this, we get something new, decide we already know how it works, and then get mad at the machine when it does something weird. Three months is a long time to wash your clothes with soap dumped right on top of them though, did your stuff even come out clean?