How to Build Flat-Pack Furniture

Psyching Yourself Up

Start the day off with positive thoughts.

Tell yourself, “You can do this!”

Have a moment of doubt and start to spiral, thinking of all the things that can go wrong:

• Missing screws.
• Splitting the wood by being too vigorous with the drill.
• You finally finish, but have one piece left that doesn’t seem to fit anywhere.

Remind yourself again, you’ve done this before, you can do it again.

Open the box, take out all the pieces and spread them around the floor.

Look around feeling completely overwhelmed.

Make a coffee to procrastinate a little longer.

What The...?

Right, you’ve got this, but we’ve moved past the psych-up stage, so even if you haven’t got this, it’s time to start.

First throw out some of the foam and plastic from the box. Hopefully with some of the mess cleared, it will feel less overwhelming.

Didn’t work, did it?

Open the instruction book, the first few pages will be the “Before You Start,” section, you can skip those. You know what you’re doing.

Read step one of the instructions.

Huh? Read it again.

Decide you’ll start by finding the first piece.

Find multiple pieces that aren’t even numbered, and mixed bags of screws that look like over-achieving chromium lollies, but nowhere near as fun. This leaves you with only one option: to pour the whole bag out and line them up against each other to determine which is “Screw A,” and which is “Screw B.” You’ll probably lose a few in the process. Fingers crossed they included extras.

I Can Do This!

Breeze through multiple steps in quick succession and get cocky about your flat-pack assembly abilities.

Reach a section where you need to add the fourth wall.

Find you just can’t get it all to line up.

Remove a dowel.

She’ll be right!

Getting sore hands? Time to grab the drill. I know the instructions say, “don’t use a drill,” but these are your instructions now.

Aha! This drill is so much quicker.

Stop, and think for a minute about how you’ll have this done in no time now.

Becoming Unhinged

You’re so close now, all you need to do is put the hinges on and attach all the doors.

Look at the instructions and realise they don’t show you a close-up image of the hinges to give you any indication of which way to install them.

Look at the hinge and realise there are four different ways to screw it on.

Think to yourself, “Oh well, I’ll just try one way, if that doesn’t work, I’ll try another way.”

Try the first way: Nope.

Try the second way: Also nope.

Try the third way: Still nope.

Try the fourth way: Nope again. Didn’t you say there were only four ways this could go?

Insert multiple swear words here.

Snap at anyone who comes near you and tries to offer you advice. What would they know anyway?

Look at the clock and realise you’ve now been working on this for hours and haven’t had anything to eat or drink since you woke up. No wonder you’re so grumpy.

Give the hinge another try. Fifth time lucky, right?

Try multiple times to drill the screw in, but it just won’t budge!

Finally give up and have some food.

Before You Pour a Drink

Feeling better now? Have a close look at the drill, realise you have it on reverse, fix it and try again.

Much better.

Burn the instruction manual and finish building by process of elimination with the parts you have left. The instructions were useless anyway.

Take some paracetamol for your throbbing head, rub those blurry eyes and finish putting the hinges on that final door.

Stand back and admire your work. Just ignore that drawer that doesn’t close properly.

Okay, now make yourself a good, stiff drink.