I actually am constantly amazed at how ingenious the design for assembling pre-fab furniture is - often requiring no more than the cheap hex it comes with. Though I did figure out a better way to put together some ikea cabinets recently than the instructions had dictated. My method allowed for my being able to lift up some heavy undercabinets and hold them in place all by myself. It was borne of necessity, but so much better. Even if my husband had been home, it would have been incredibly hard to do it their way.

I don't understand the complaints I've heard over the years about IKEA instructions. I've never had a problem understanding the drawings or putting any of their items together. (I actually find it kind of relaxing, weirdly).

And putting them together becomes even easier once you've done one or two items--there's an underlying logic to how pieces fit together, and which little metal parts do what. It helps if you are very organized about it and sort the various components into separate piles and give the instructions a quick once-over before starting.

Having the wrong instruction manual enclosed in the package.

Having just assembled an "Andy" 3-drawer unit yesterday, I can say that the directions were straightforward and simple, even for a spacially challenged person like me. I especially like the little stick-figure guy who is featured on all the directions.

I remember fighting with Ikea pieces in my college days ten or so years ago but I think either I've gotten smarter or Ikea has because I've assembled many of their furniture pieces over the last two or three years without ever having a problem. I agree with slowdown, it is very relaxing.

Putting together our dining table - where you had to make your own holes to attach the legs. That made for a frustrating evening since you had to do the same with the chairs.

Does it count if the project is a DIY that doesn't come with instructions? I've spent the last two days trying to turn a dresser into a media cabinet. I'm not sure how something as simple as 2 hinges can frustrate me so much...but I'm about to lose my mind.

Poor IKEA. They take the brunt. But recently, a West Elm bed that came with 3 legs drilled right and the 4th leg drilled on the wrong side (the outside instead of the inside). I called to request another leg. It never came. Because the holes on the wrong side were exactly at the right height, I couldn't drill holes on the inside leg or the whole thing would have split. Hello cinderblock. Eventually it got fixed, but not without a migraine. The worst part was that one of the West Elmies I spoke to started laughing when I told him the problem, then said, oh, we get that one a lot.

The grate on my cheap little grill wasn't going on right after I had toiled for an hour to put it together. I thought, "Eff it, I'll have my boyfriend fix it later." Only to realize that all I had to do is pivot the grate 90 degrees.

My worst furniture assembly story was when my husband and I bought the Ikea Expidit bookcase with the TV compartment. I had already put together a regular Expidit bookcase by myself, so I knew we would need a wide open space.

We first tried to put it together in our living room downstairs since it had the most wide open area. After we had assembled it, we discovered that it was too tall to slide up the stairs. Frustrated, we took the bookcase apart and took the pieces upstairs.

Once there, we decided the only place we could put it together would be on top of our queen bed. It was very difficult considering the softness of the mattress and that the bookcase was wider than our bed. After a screaming match and me shutting myself in the laundry room, we finally finished it. Unfortunately, we just weren't strong enough to tilt the bookcase off of our bed and against its designated wall. We had to call my brother and beg him to help us.

Thankfully, he was the additional man power we needed to lift the bookcase as well as some much needed comedic relief.

I haven't had a problem with Ikea, but I once bought a heavy duty shelf from Home Depot that promised a 'no tool' assembly. Total nightmare. When I attempted it with no tools it fell apart completely with every step. Eventually I had to use a screwdriver, pliers, and a hammer.

Don't fix something if it isn't broke; tools have been great for humans for millions of years.

I've never had a problem with IKEA furniture either, until this weekend, when my couch had no instructions. It took some trying and changing bolts before I figured it out. Then I opened the slipcover from Bemz to discover it needs to be put on BEFORE you put the couch together. The second time I put it together went much more smoothly.

I've never understood the IKEA assembly trash talking. IKEA has always been the easiest to assemble for me -- never had any missing pieces or problems with directions.
Bookshelf and TV stand from Target on the other hand... don't get me started. One piece broke while trying to screw it in, and the directions and hole locations and parts needed to accomplish assembly were more complicated, for a comparable/slightly higher price.

I am a Mechanical Engineer and generally enjoy putting stuff together. In fact as a challenge it's fun to hide the instructions! But the IKEA Expedit has almost ruined some friendships. The 5x5 cannot be assembled alone and it is soooo frustrating because everything has to line up perfectly for it to assemble. I shudder to think of it.

I agree with you, any such name.

Although my worst story is about an Ikea piece, it was human error and lack of space that lead to the frustration.

I have also put together furniture from Target and Home Depot and it just doesn't compare to Ikea in ease of assembly and easy to understand instructions.

I assembled a barbecue that had blurred instructions with a long list of nuts and bolts that were all very similar in size and shape. The only saving grace was that the instructions were in colour and the pictures of the nuts and bolts were colour coded. Tragically all the actual, real life nuts and bolts were all just metal coloured.

I am trying to type this with one hand and a broken hand as a result of my most frustrated recent effort at assembling a piece of furniture. Nevermind that it was a new ikea set of dressers. I really wanted something nicer but the budget being what it is we had no choice. It wasn't until after last Friday's surgery which now has 3 pins in my crushed left hand that we noticed the ikea website warns about this particular dresser's propensity for falling over. It was both our eagerness to try pushing the dresser back into place and it's seriously top-heavy build that led to my busted hand and my partner's pulled back.

I bought a 4x2 cube expedit and actually put it together all by myself. It would have been easier with another person, but I managed it pretty easily.

This isn't furniture, but recently my front door knob just came loose and the whole thing fell apart. The instructions were useless! (My uncle put it on the first time). The instructions was basically just pictures of putting the knob on the door. It didn't say what to do with all the little springs and all the other little pieces that went on the handle. I spent hours working on it and went to bed without it. Thankfully a friend of a friend who is an engineer came over the next day and he was able to figure it out (without the directions).

Yikes, deedee914! I think you win the prize (for what little comfort it's worth).

I've moved all over the country, and every time I had to put my old futon together by myself (solid oak, BTW), I ended up bruised, soaked with sweat, and hoarse from cursing Allen (as is, wrench).

CB2's Acacia Mini Bar. It got rave reviews for assembly, and I've never had a problem with assembling furniture before so I gave it a go. With all due respect to CB2, I then found out it was a two person-job, but seriously, that thing took years off my life.

Everything I have ever bought in my life, even things given to me as gifts, have been missing two pieces. EVERY.TIME. No more, no less. I have even had people oversee just to make sure that I didn't just always lose things. I use to get soooo frustrated but now I have finally just accepted it as a part of life.

We have assembled so much furniture... and are repeatedly conquered by those door assemblies. (not only ikea, also other vendors). you know the ones... they're supposed to really easily snap into place.... HA!

My effectiv cabinet is a perfect example. It has four doors, so 8 of those things! Took us 2 afternoons... so embarrasing.

They're even worse to work with if you're mounting large glass (HEAVY) doors... like on our 96" pax wardrobes.

I've put together a small Billy bookcase incorrectly, but it's still usable, so I've just lived with the error (the bookcase looks normal- a screw or something was just put in wrong somewhere toward the bottom). I vaguely remember struggling to put my Poang chair together too, but that worked out okay in the end. That was my first Ikea piece, if I remember correctly.

Otherwise, no big problems with Ikea stuff. I actually like their instructions, and they only get easier to follow after you've put together a few things and know what to expect. But I've never assembled anything super-complicated or super-heavy, so maybe it's easy for me to say that.

I have IKEA bookcases and one cabinet that were easy to assemble with the help of a friend.

But the FIRA storage box not really furniture was a nightmare, or I failed the IQ test..I wanted one to house those small odds and ends for my office but there was no way I could figure it out. I had to return it as it was mocking me while sitting there in all its a hundred pieces.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50073305

Wow-deedee914 you win! I hope you are felling better you poor thing.

I think the most difficult time I've had with something was a barbeque. It took over 6 hours! That one was the instructions fault.

I laugh about it now, but I recall trying to assemble a 5x5 Expedite shelf by myself one night... it can't be done!
I ended up crushing my foot and having to go to the emergency room. The nurse laughed when I told her it was an Ikea injury. She said she'd seen quite a few of those in her time!

Through trial and error I've found the only way to assemble Ikea furniture is to have a glass or two of bourbon and listen to a couple episodes of This American Life. Even so I once spent quite a long time assembling an Expedit in my living room only to realize it couldn't make the turn to get into my bedroom where it was meant to be. I had to disassemble and reassemble the whole thing.

I once had to put a metal leg for a microwave cart in the freezer for an hour because I had assembled two of the items the wrong way - and they stuck! They came apart fairly easily when I took it out of the freezer.

I also spent about TWO! WEEKS! struggling to figure out how to put together a metal vanity rack that goes around your toilet. The instructions reversed where the long and short screws were to go, AND it was impossible to put together even with revised instructions... I ended up figuring out a way to do it (that proudly did not call for duct tape), but I left that POS in the apartment when I moved.

Neither of my previous items were IKEA, though.

However, I have a dining room/craft table from IKEA that refused to let me drill the screws in all the way to attach the top to the base and legs. So every once in a while I manage to catch a bare leg on the screw near where I sit and leave a big ouchy. I need to get some white duct tape, methinks.

I've put together an Expidit bookcase, one of the big 5 by 5 ones, together with minimal cursing. I did end up marring the surface of the thick side pieces because I ended up needing to hammer it into place to get it together. Luckily that was the side going up against the wall, so, no biggie.

I've put together five of the tall Billy bookcases with the glass doors. No big bother. They went together a charm.

No, what's really vexing me is these little Fira mini-chests, with the nine small drawers. Nine small drawers for each chest. That need to be nailed together. With this miserable little brads that bend at the slightest provocation. And all the time I'm worried as heck that my down stairs neighbor will hate me because of all the hammering noise.

I like to ditch the instructions and put together furniture like a giant puzzle. It makes it more exciting.

i'm with janamartin about rough West Elm experiences. I have a bed frame that took forever to assemble mostly cause the pics they have in their instructions are awful. They had a drawing of one support part being assembled, only to really have it be the other support part that I was supposed to be using. The shape was totally off! It's really not a hard bed to assemble if they pictured the parts correctly. Their 3-D drawings of their hardware & were it's supposed to end up are very humorous as well...

The instructions for an Ikea desk set clearly stated that at least two people were necessary to position the hutch on top of the desk. I ignored the advice and tried to do it myself. Result: a herniated disc and chronic back pain. On the plus side, I no longer feel the least bit guilty about hiring movers.

Ikea Malm double bed. Arggh.

No issues with IKEA for me either although I HAD to help a poor hapless guy I briefly knew who put together a Saunders type of bookcase from Target and got it together and up and put books on it and it totally collapsed. Why? He didn't put the back on it to give it strength so with torn joints (remember, particle board and fake woodgrain veneer), poor tools and his cursing the bookcase for somethign that was HIS error, we got it reassembled alright and it held up, for how long, I don't know but it was up when I left, not looking to pretty however.

He swore he'd never buy stuff from Target again.

I did assemble, by myself the 2x4 Expidet bookcase and since it was to remain on its side, it worked out quite fine. I DID have one inexpensive white melanine 3 shelf bookcase not be straight when I forgot to ensure it was before nailing the back on, oh well.

I think I just have a knack for putting furniture together. I discovered this when I was about 15 and my dad got a bar-b-q for Father's day. He struggled for a while to put it togther, I took a look at the instructions and pointed out that he had the frame that forms the base upside down. Ikea directions looked odd the firs time I saw them, but after a few items, they have a familiar sort of syntax that's predictable. You also learn what really requires two people (large expedite bookcases) and what doesn't (most things with glass, provided all the tools and hardware are within reach so you can hold the piece in place while you grab what you need to secure it). My Aunt still finds them impossible to do, but she hires me to come over and put her Ikea furniture together, so we both win.

I cut myself on the metal support bars for the Malm bed. The instructions did warn about their sharp sides though.
The most labour intensive though was the Eskog sofa with the sofa bed attachment. I had never had to assemble an entire sofa prior to this experience. The instructions were pretty simple to follow but the pull-out bed attachment was only easily attachable if one had hands and arms the size of a 3 year old. We ended up having to turn the sofa on it's back, and I had to stand on a chair to put the thing in place.

Oh man, I feel better since reading that other people had trouble with the Fira chests from Ikea! I was embarrassed that out of all the furniture I've assembled myself, the only thing I ever totally gave up on was a little Fira chest! I ended up giving both of them to my boyfriend. Then he didn't want them anymore, and gave them back to me, fully assembled. Ha HA! I would like to get more, but the thought of having to put them together dissuades me.

My friend and I put together an Ikea futon a couple of years ago. Unlike the futon I bought about 10 years which used metal screws, this one came with these stupid plastic screw things. When you pounded one in, the other ones would pop back out.

I can't say that I've ever had problems putting together KD furniture from any manufacturer, although years ago when I was an Assistant Manager at a Door Store in Annapolis, it was the Sauder stuff that was the most difficult to assemble...

We also sold bookcases that were made by Doxey of North Carolina - I must have put together dozens of those things. I'd often get calls from irate customers who would bark about how they were "impossible" to put together...
...come to find out, the people who couldn't manage to assemble them were nearly always engineers.

I bought two TOBO TV units (one small and one large) had had different problems with the same parts in each of them. Where the legs meet the cross braces you are supposed to screw in a bolt. On one of them they forgot to thread (tap) the hole so the bolt wouldn't screw in. On the other unit, in the same place, the plate (with the hole) wasn't there at all! They both still work, and are currently standing, but I hope I'm not around when the legs give (eek!)

This wasn't a bad experience, just a funny one. I got a bonus one-day job which required me to: rent a truck, buy a bunch of Ikea furniture for dressing rooms, and deliver it all assembled to a venue the next morning. I was allowed to hire one person to help me, so I called in Mr. peanut. I decided that it made no sense to carry all the flat-packed furniture into our apartment, assemble it, and then bring it downstairs and put it back on the truck -- not to mention, that would mean finding parking for a truck while we assembled. Instead, I decided we should just assemble the furniture IN the truck.

We got to Ikea early, and began our day with breakfast and coffee in the food court. Then we bought everything -- multiple chairs, couches, tables, side tables, a few mirrors, etc. Brought the items we had in our carts out to the truck and loaded them in. Tackled the large-item pick-up area, and loaded those into the truck. Then we realized that neither of us had a lock for the truck; but we didn't want to drive away, because by that point in the day we were unsure of our ability to secure two parking spaces facing each other, which was necessary for the truck. Mr. peanut set off for the horizon while I guarded the loot; after 30 minutes of wandering, he came back with the crappiest-quality $40 lock in the history of man (he had made the mistake of showing his desperation to the cashier at the sketchy hardware store he found). Finally, we locked the truck and ate lunch in the food court/cafe.

After lunch came the "assembly" part of the afternoon. Harder than it sounds. First of all, this was January, but the only way we could see at all was to keep the back of the truck open, obviously -- so we were absolutely freezing. Second, each item we assembled left even less room in which to assemble the others, so we had to be smart about the order in which we did things. Third, it was a holiday, so Ikea was packed and people kept stopping to watch us work, to comment, to offer us money to put their furniture together, etc. Fourth, by the end of it we were surfing on flattened cardboard boxes, even though we used a lot of it to protect the assembled furniture from the walls of the truck -- it was just everywhere.

The whole thing started out fun and funny but a few hours in, freezing and cranky, sick of joking politely with the people who stopped to watch, we were pretty sick of it. FINALLY we finished. I loaded the collapsed cardboard into a shopping cart and left it in the cart corral, unable to find a dumpster or a large trash can. I felt bad leaving it there, but we did pack it tightly so nothing would blow out.

Before we drove off into the setting sun, we went back into Ikea for a third meal -- dinner, with dessert and a coffee to warm up our still-freezing fingers.

Without a doubt, the Ikea "Dalom" side table. Who knew three leg pieces and a top could be such a royal pain? It's still only marginally assembled but I refuse to start over. For $20, three hours each way to the Chicago Ikea, and two-plus hours of assembly--assuming I place some value on my time--I could have almost afforded the Saarinen table I wanted instead!

Blu Dot lateral file.

Let's just say the experience was so horrific and involved so much email and phone time with service representatives, not to mention botched deliveries of replacement parts, that I ended up with a free filing cabinet and a bitter sense that I'd still gotten the short end of the deal.

Having no instructions, but a wretched sense of dedication to finishing the job.

I've never had a problem with Ikea furniture, but last year I bought some furniture that came from Poland, and all the directions were also in Polish. I don't speak or read or understand Polish. It took a while, but I got it all together. My prior Ikea experience was helpful.

I had never had problems putting together large assembly required furniture before. However, I just bought the Ikea Trollsta sideboard. I decided to try to put it together myself and I put on few movies while I did it. Everything went well until I got to the part where you screw the metal bottom leg pieces onto the particle board top.

The drawing from the instructions was drawn at such an unusual angle. I double checked to make sure the little notch was opposite the decorative metal part and got to work screwing it in. It went fine, annoyingly slow because you could only turn the little wrench tool they give you about half a turn at a time and they take like 1,000 turns to screw the screws in. I was on the last screw when I realized I had been working on the same screw for a really long time...like 30 minutes long. (I was watching a movie and so I wasn't really paying attention). I finally put more pressure on it so it caught and went down and I turn to the next page and the angle of the drawing is different and I realize ...I've screwed it on backwards @_@

I had to unscrew the whole thing to turn the decorative portion of the bottom to the other side. Overall, I actually like assembling furniture but I have to say I almost threw my screw driver out the window with that one.

I recently bought and put together 11 pieces of Ikea furniture. Nothing was missing and it all went together nice and square at the end. The larger pieces all went together very smoothly, and it was kind of fun like putting together a puzzle. It was the smaller things that gave me hell. I bought a little three-shelf rolling cart to store things in the bathroom, and that one was a struggle. It's one of those no screws, no tools things where you have to try to hold all the bits in place and cram it all together simultaneously. If my sister wasn't there, I don't know how I would have done it myself.

A metal wall shelf I bought was a test of faith. As I was following the instructions, I thought there is no way this is going to go together - you have to put all the shelves and the side supports into place on its side by only lightly tightening each screw (which would hardly even go in the right holes), then you had to stand the whole wobbly thing up and tighten all the screws. Miraculously the shelf didn't completely collapse when I pulled it to a standing position, and then suddenly it wasn't so hard to turn in the screws anymore. Now it's extremely sturdy and I'm very pleased with it.

Buying the same jewelry armoire from Target three times only to find out all three times that it had been damaged in the factory. I still don't have a jewelry armoire.

I don't know if it really counts but I put together a gas grill for my dad when I was 17. It wasn't that difficult but there were a million pieces and I thought I was going to put it together wrong and blow my dad up. But 11 years later, it still works.

Suffice to say, I was the first one to use it, set the gas on high (per instructions) and burned the hair off my arms. That was a pretty scary experience.

For me it was a desk I got at an extreme discount at one of the office supply stores.

We had just moved to Seattle, to Beacon Hill, and had almost no furniture beyond our mattresses. I had assembled a couple of IKEA things, and thought flat pack was no big deal. That was before I met this desk.

It was some no name brand flat pack desk that was being discontinued. It was only $79 for the massive desk. We loaded it into the truck, and brought it home.

My first impression was that the desk's directions were seemingly missing steps, and were written in some ancient alchemical code. I figured I could just wing it. I've built real furniture before, right?

Not so much. It had a trillion pieces. It took ages to scrutinize the badly drawn pictures for hints.

I could do that. The real problem was that all the predrilled holes were so small, that I couldn't screw the screws in easily. I remember fighting to get the first pieces together. Only two screws in, and my arms were killing me.

Several hours later, I got the massive monstrosity near done. I had only had a singularly huge existential melt down related to my own physical weakness, had my neighbors come inquire as to the what the hammering was about, and finally resorted to drinking some wine.

It was late at night when I got the damn thing finished, and I hated it. There was no sense of triumph, just a quite loathing at the desk, and feeling that it mocked me when I turned my back.

I got rid of it six months later when we moved to Everett for a different job. Good riddance.

finishing, and at the and notice you have 5 screwes left.

I also quite enjoy putting together IKEA furniture.

But I have to admit, when I moved to Hong Kong, I paid for the deliverymen to assemble it. It's only 10% of the price here. It was amazing to watch, really. Last time I assembled an IKEA bed it took a friend and me a good 3 hours...the deliverymen did my new bed in (literally) 15 minutes. I was totally floored!

I have been designated the unofficial Ikea Installer for a trade show I help out at a few times a year. EVERYTHING Ikea comes to me - I once put together sixteen Lack shelving units (the big bookshelves, not the singles) inside of about 2 hours. THAT was fun, and those things are surprisingly light. A few bits of advice for people.

If you're an Ikea fan, go to a good hardware store and pick up a small battery powered screwdriver (black & Decker used to have one for about $10) and a few sizes of allen key bits. It is the biggest lifesaver when you're having to do dozens of the damned things, or if you have something that seems to need re-tightening often (their cheap laptop tables, for me).

Don't try to do it in a hurry, if you can avoid that at all. If you're getting frustrated, stop. Have something cold to drink, and think about what you're doing and how you're doing it. Ikea stuff isn't intended to be forced, and if you seem to need to force it, you're probably duing it rong.

That being said, if it's stupid, and it works, it ain't stupid. If you CANNOT get the stupid Ivar table leg lag bolts to go in, just use a long screw through the material instead, from the inside (or even from the outside if you can find some "pretty" screws) It's your product, and there really is no "right" way to do or use it (Ikeahacks FTW!)

If you're working with a few people, go on the Ikea website, or on your way out of the store, get a 2nd set of instructions. Hell, ask for it if you're prone to losing stuff, too. They can usually just print you off another copy, but sometimes old directions get purged from the database, and then things get harder. I try to tape a copy of the directions somewhere inconspicuous, with notes as far as what was harder, and what was easier, and what "duh..." moments I had. Similarly, if you run out of pieces or are missing some, ask at the returns/exchanges counter. They'll give you replacements with no fuss.

Finally, in the instruction books now, there is a phone number. If you're stuck, really stuck, use it. This will connect you to someone who can give you better advice on how to put it together, because that's what they do, all day long.

Ikea or otherwise, you can't get any more in time-consumption and frustration that with the Norman Copenhagen 69 lamp.

http://www.connox-shop.com/categories/lamps/suspensions/normann-copenhagen-norm-69.html

Depending on the size, it comes with no less than about 65 pieces of flat plastic that you need to bend and clot into place. It's a pretty simple instruction manual and well laid out, but the actual manual work involved is very time consuming and at time, extremely frustrating. As you near the final assembly (it's done from top to bottom) you practically need children's hand's to fit inside it and make the connections.

I bought my first lamp as the the first lighting to have in a new apartment I moved into in Denmaark (apartments sold there have no light fixtures included. I started around 4pm after unpacking and was well into darkness (lit only by a candle) almost 3 hours into it by the time it was complete and ready to wire.

R

PS. if the assembly of this lamp is tough, even more difficult is replacing a bulb. You need to guide your hand inside the lobster-trap like plastic spikes while somehow holding the lamp base to unscrew the bulb through the narrow slits in the plastic panels. I dread replacing bulbs...

don't get me wrong. it's a great lamp and they have good service (replaced a few parts that had broken or melted immediately after sending them an email), it's just a biatch to assemble.

R

I don't recall ever having problems putting IKEA furniture together. I find it fun and relaxing also.

The CB2 acacia bar was probably the most difficult furniture I've put together, from the weight of the boxes, the numerous pieces, the order of things, to putting on the hinges to the doors and lining them up with the adjustment screws. Added to this was the fact that one of the wooden pegs used early in the process was missing. Rather than wait for them to order the part, I carved a replacement peg from a dowel.

IkEA sells decent looking furniture at bargain prices.However, many people that I spoke to regarding IKEA echoed a similar complaint.They said that the instructions that come with IKEA assembly manual are ambiguous and hazy and they charges an hefty price for shipping.
Over the weekend I bought a KULLEN wardrobe with 3 doors for $ 149-. When I tried to assembled it,I realized that the parts are not marked or coded.The instruction manual does not give reference to the sizes. It was a real nightmares.

Take hope. You can find the answer to your furniture frustrations.