ok today me and my family went down to ikea and bought a cabinet with a roller door on the frount of which my mum had seen on a ealier acassion and she now had a place to put it.
so we bought it and went home.

on the instruction manual it said "construction time = 30 mins" well first of that was a lie
so we got started putting it together.

first of was to but the actual cabinet together. no proplem there. time = 5 mins

ok you know how ikea instructions are picture of what you should do. well this one was very confusing because it was time to but the roller door on.

its the kind of thing you would expect to be premade and just boxed. well this one wasn't.

60 mins later. it took us that long just to get thr roller door part in the top bit (the bit that twerls up) because the stupid instructions were just picture that were taken at the wrong angle.

then 2 hours later still trying to flowing the stupid instructions, we got the entire thing together.

gees what a way to spend a saterday night!!!

 

 

 

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hehe, some assembly required

I actually like IKEA for what it is. I've got a dresser and several bookcases from there. Granted, you'll need a higher IQ than a trained monkey to put the furniture together, but it's cheap and functional. Some of my friends don't have the patience or handyman skills to do it, so they hire my husband since he works in maintenance and does a lot of handyman stuff around the house. His dad worked as an electrician and his grandpa worked as a carpenter, so he picked up some stuff from them. Everything else he learned from his job working maintenance at a historic theatre that was built in the 1920s.

For stuff that I want to last, I buy from a reputable furniture store. Or I bug my husband's aunt into giving me a discount at her antique store. I scored a lovely Mission-style rocking chair from her last estate auction. It fits perfectly with our little Craftsman Bungalow.

 

 

 

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I really hate assembling furniture. That's usually a sign that the stuff is cheap, and won't last too terribly long.

IKEA is particularly bad. The stuff might last for a decent amount of time but, like you said, putting it together just sucks.

I've found that, if I shop around, I can buy REAL furniture for less than what I'd pay at IKEA or Wal-Mart for cheap garbage. My kick-butt desk...solid hardwood with veneer...thirty-five dollars. The only problem? It was used. But you couldn't really tell because everything was still in very good condition.

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Heheh,
I also had a desk from IKEA wich had to be assembled,
on the instructions they claimed it would be an hour to assemble

I started about 7pm with the first part and when it was finished was about 1am
and every day I had to check it for not falling apart, since most connectors are broken.

*sings:'Incredibly IKEA'*

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What a night you had, lol. Well those instructions can be difficult to understand, but at least you got it together, most of the time when that happens to me(when I need to put something together) and it takes me that long, i just give up afterwards. So at least you stuck with it.

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man I dont know, but I bought a small red couch from them and install time stated that it would be 35 minutes.
Well they were wrong, It only took us 15 minutes, and its not because we were trying to rush. We actually tried to take our time building it.
First we took out all the pieces and screws laid them all out nicely and then we looked at the isntructions and we began to place it all together.. it was a total of 8 pieces but it was quick simple and easy to do.
So im not sure if it was just your rolling cabinet thing you purchased or of it eas just the bad isntuctions they gave, but everything we have gotten from there has always been pretty easy.

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I'm not fond of Ikea assembly instructions either. Or their customer service for that matter. When I bought a dresser, it was missing a part, and the parts were numbered or labelled at all so describing it to the customer service was a real adventure. But you're lucky if you even manage to talk to customer service, I was on hold for like 4 hours before someone spoke with me. So after that was done with, and being a month later, the part finally came. I was actually kind of excited (the I would get to use all the drawers). But that immediately degraded to frustration as I find out that they send the wrong part! So I called them up again (going through the same process as before), and another month or two later they show up with the correct part.

It was a real adventure, and that personally turned me away from Ikea. I'd make my own furniture if I had the materials. Unfortunately I don't. There really don't seem to be any exceptional furniture retailers. Well I can't really think of any at the moment, besides La-Z-Boy.

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There is a reason why IKEA furniture is so much cheaper than other places. Having to assemble your own furniture is part of the reason why prices are low to begin with. I have bought my sofa bed and my cabinets and tables from their stores, and I enjoyed it all. I have also bought various pots and pans from them as well and they are all very good quality. I particularly like the cups and mugs that they have available; they match my walls perfectly. Yes, I realized that having to assemble your own furniture can be difficult. However for me has never taken more than an hour to assemble. I suppose the only difficult part is having to carry the boxes which are very heavy to the car. Did I mention that I always enjoy the hot dogs and cinnamon buns while I am there. They are very cheap and they also have free samples of cheese as well.

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I'm sure you know these instructions pretty well :



Yeah. IKEA's instructions are a bit vague but they at least create something so they don't have to repeatedly translate manuals and waste money that way. It's decent furniture, however. It gets the job done in a way which is as plain as I like it and that's all I'm concerned with.

One time I was viewing instructions and they had a picture of a person on it and it ended up confusing me because I'm not quite sure what that person is supposed to represent. After that there were a few odd instructions I didn't get until a few minutes and a few wood glue bottles later, but I eventually got it.

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The build time and the instructions are bearable, but what bugs me the most is when they do not add the necessary parts. I've bought many things from Ikea, from desks to tables to chairs. When I try to assemble things, they usually come about. But for me, theres always a 50% of a defect. For one, sometimes they forget to add one or two vital pieces! Another thing that pisses me off is when they give you two of the same side, when you need an opposite piece. I learned to bear with it, its just another few trips to Ikea. Now I think, are those trips of wasting gas worth it?

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