Fighting to assemble your new couch? Here's how to do it easily.
Redecorating is supposed to be fun—except that hauling home heavy furniture can create more aches and pains than smiles. Ready-to-assemble furniture is intended to make things easier, yet ask any number of people and they'll tell you they'd rather have a tooth pulled than try flat-pack furniture.
The truth is that, even though assembling flat-pack furniture is not most people's idea of a good time, it really doesn't have to be so bad. And in the end, it can turn out looking professionally assembled and really enhance the look of a room.
Here are 10 tips to help you put together ready-to-assemble furniture with minimal hassle:
1. Do your research – Before spending your money on a piece of flat-pack furniture that you think looks great, download the assembly instructions, available on most big brands' websites. That way, you can determine which furniture will be easy to put together and avoid any nightmares. Another bonus of comparing various ready-to-assemble instruction manuals is that they usually give you an estimate for how long a project will take to complete. That gives you an indication both of complexity and of how to budget your time.
2. Read the instructions ahead of time – Okay, so flat-pack furniture instructions may sometimes read like the fine print on tax returns. However, not reading them is only going to complicate your furniture assembly. And if you try to read them while simultaneously clutching a heavy wooden panel, screwdriver clenched between your teeth, frantically flipping pages … that's unpleasant. So, take 10 minutes before the start of your project to carefully go through the manual included with your ready-to-assemble project.
3. Phone a friend – Nobody thinks of furniture building as a bonding experience. In fact, it's the cause of plenty of arguments. However, sometimes you need three or four hands on a project, and having a good friend help you will make things that much easier. After reading the instructions, do the easy part yourself, then call in someone patient, cheerful, and (as necessary for your specific project) strong.
4. Build your new furniture in the same room it will be used in – This avoids two disasters, namely, hauling a heavy piece of furniture around awkward corners and along long halls and then finding it doesn't fit through a doorway! Read the instructions to determine your ready-to-assemble furniture's measurements, then allocate the necessary space and get to work within that same space.
5. Stay organized – Clear a space. Lay down a clean sheet to work upon, in order to avoid scuffing your new furniture. Then get yourself some Tupperware or bowls and pour the various screws, nuts, bolts, etc. into each receptacle, labeling with a Post-It note so you know which is which. Also count the number of each item. This avoids that terrible moment when you've almost finished a project, only to realize you're missing (or have lost) that one last screw.
6. Take it easy – It's not a race. If you get tired after working for a while, take a break. Unless you're working to a specific deadline, there's no reason you must complete the project in one day. Make the day as enjoyable as possible by taking coffee breaks as needed.
7. Hire help – Make life easy on yourself and hire someone to assemble your flat-pack furniture. Plenty of companies have trained professionals who can take the literal weight off your shoulders by building your furniture for a reasonable fee. If you're just not great at putting together flat-pack furniture, or don't enjoy that kind of thing (some people actually do!), contact a furniture assembly company. Furniture Fabrication Experts will save you time, trouble, and money by setting up your ready-to-assemble project in no time at all. Then you can sit back and enjoy the fruits of their labor, without ever having had to break a sweat yourself. Their trained professionals make life easy.
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