back
88 comments
One time I hired two different random guys on craigslist to assemble three IKEA bureaus. They didn't know each other beforehand, and I hired them separately to work together.

They started by jockeying to see which one was going to be in charge, arguing about how to proceed, throwing shade, making claims of superiority. One guy wanted to follow the instructions, and the other guy just wanted to go on intuition. They couldn't agree and asked me which one should be in charge, and I said, I don't know just work together, follow the instructions, and get this stuff built.

The instructions guy assumed the lead, and then they settled into a rhythm. Three hours later, they couldn't stop gushing about each other, and a most beautiful bromance was born. They exchanged telephone numbers and made plans to hang out on the weekend.

I feel like there’s a takeaway here for the male loneliness epidemic but I’m not sure what
I hired a guy to assemble a desk...he did a shit job. Won't be doing that again.
Cool! I had codex have a go at calculating "effective price" on a few items, that prices in the assembly labor, and then also calculates the delta between price and effective price. Obviously very depended on how you value your time, but here are some items at $30/hour:

BRIMNES storage bed + headboard, Queen $549 + 320 min labor = $709 (delta: +$160 / +29%)

HEMNES 8-drawer dresser $380 + 236 min labor = $498 (delta: +$118 / +31%)

STORKLINTA 6-drawer dresser $250 + 224 min labor = $362 (delta: +$112 / +45%)

SLÄKT storage bed, Twin $450 + 212 min labor = $556 (delta: +$106 / +24%)

BRIMNES 3-door wardrobe $250 + 189 min labor = $344.50 (delta: +$94.50 / +38%)

ALEX drawer unit: $95 + 96 min labor = $143 (delta: +$48 / +51%)

BRIMNES cabinet with doors: $99 + 75 min labor = $136.50 (delta: +$37.50 / +38%)

KALLAX 2x4 shelf unit: $65 + 39 min labor = $84.50 (delta: +$19.50 / +30%)

Formula: effective price = sticker price + (estimated assembly minutes / 60 * hourly value of time).

I was surprised by how similar the % diff is across the board.

> Obviously very depended on how you value your time ...

More like how you approach life.

Assembling furnitures is a very fun and zen thing to do IMO. I know a least one surgeon who would gladly bill more $$$ but there are simply hours when the hospital is closed: assembling a furniture with your kid after a day's work is a cool and relaxing thing to do.

Friends of mine, about a year ago, asked me to help with some technical stuff on the first day they moved their startup in their new office. When I arrived, the desks hadn't even been assembled yet (they were late on schedule).

I helped them assemble the desks: I find that highly relaxing, gratifying and relaxing to do.

Many moons ago I did that too in southern california: physically building the desks, unpacking the PCs and monitors, hooking up everything (back when there were still, btw, people plugging the VGA cable instead of the HDMI one for monitors that came with both), running the ethernet cables, configuring the PCs, configuring the Linux server.

Doing it all. Then configuring the Linux servers.

It's like painting a place you move in's walls: it's got nothing to do with "how you value time".

I lived in four countries. We'll certainly move to a fifth one one day. I'm excited at the idea of going to the hardware store, buying paint and screws and nuts and bolts and whatnots and preparing the place.

And assembling furnitures.

If an ALEX drawer unit takes them over an hour and a half to build, IMHO they're doing something wrong. Many others on that list seem suspiciously high (the BRIMNES comes to mind). Curious how it came up with those values.
To be fair, a lot of these items are cannot really be purchased without assembly being required.

Or purchasing them in their assembled state can require even more logistical transportation overhead such as specialized vehicle rentals.

Your point stands though that furniture has a higher cost than the sticker implies.

I believe this table needs a column for the disassembly process as well.

I bought and assembled a TUFFING Bunk Bed years ago, and even though the complexity of assembly is reported as 4644 on this web site (which is also suspiciously low), as far as I can tell the only way to disassemble it is to use an angle grinder.

> use an angle grinder.

I do use wood glue on all dowel pins, so most stuff is assembly once only. Unless the furniture provides metal inserts for machine screws, I do not consider it disassembly material. It's likely to exhibit the spontaneous disassembly on its right own otherwise (or squeak soon enough)

I had to disassemble some furniture as well recently. It had one and a half million screws and whatnots and since it was going to recycling center anyways I figured out sledgehammer was as good tool as any. Turns out it was better than _any_, ultrafast (take that claude!) and a ton of fun.
Tuffing is “tough guy”, somewhat appropriate
the comments on ikea's site seem to agree with you - lots of extremely negative ones about the assembly

I did not do sentiment analysis on the comments (to modify my fudge factor mentioned elsewhere - which is the bulk of my complexity rating computation), but that could be a good next step..!

I once bought a paper basket that was made out of two pieces and I managed to assemble it the wrong way. I guess I should multiply those estimates by pi.
(OP) thanks for this insight, truly - I took another look and ikea.com reviews actually include a whole dedicated "ease of assembly" value! some very easy-looking products do actually rate quite badly on the assembly

adding that column now, should be live in the next 10-20 mins cheers!

Same for me. It's not linear. Instructions may be more likely to be ignored when the product appears to be very simple.
(in my experience) if this table included other flat-pack vendors the difference would be stark. Wayfair and the like are far more complex to assemble.
Agreed. Whenever we end up getting non-IKEA furniture I preemptively cringe as I open the instructions.

The only time I’ve had a mistake building IKEA furniture was after opening both pieces of a combo shelf at once: there was a subtle but relevant distinction between the crossbars that was not obvious from the instructions, because ordinarily you wouldn’t have pieces from another shelf to confuse with each other.

If you look at the item number and it begins with an s, it means it's a combination of multiple articles. If you click "what's included" you'll see what articles it consists of. The assembly documents will include the assembly documents for each child article. On the top pax, you can see it actually consists of 20 distinct child articles (some of which require no assembly).
Love this.

Whoever made this, please make a "proportion" column somehow!

I would like to know which has the most complexity per total volume or weight (it's less surprising that huge items have high complexity).

LÖNSET Slatted bed base King 302.787.13

3h of fun for a mere $140.

I've seen more expensive hobbies.

This is the new version, the old one is called sultan laxeby. Easily 1.5x the amount of time.

PDF for assembly is still up on the website: https://www.ikea.com/nl/nl/assembly_instructions/sultan-laxe...

I have nightmares of these, I’ll gladly pay someone else to do it next time
I'm just an average guy, and I love assembling Ikea furniture. It feels like an adult Lego. But sometimes, I wonder if this is like an IQ test, as I need to sometimes figure out what the illustration is asking me to do. My feeling is that those who have higher IQ will do better. Anyway, now these days, it feels like Lego costs more than Ikea furniture.
A lot of these pdfs contain steps which are optional or only apply in certain situations. Does that decrease the complexity because there are less steps to do? Or does it increase.. the cyclomatic complexity!
> A lot of these pdfs contain steps which are optional or only apply in certain situations.

Participants in Ikea speed-assembly competitions would like to know more.

My parser is unfortunately not fancy enough to detect optional steps - but it's a great point!
Fun data sheet! I was curious about most steps per part and it seems to be TROTTEN[1] at 1.07 steps per part (excluding some other products like a toilet brush with 1 part but the steps are actually for a separate add-on to attach it to the wall).

[1]: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/trotten-cabinet-with-doors-whit...

Where did you pull this data from?
I think its AI sentiment generated data, no way someone needs 6.5h for a bed frame. I needed at best 2h...
IKEA beds are underestimated: these flimsy POS planks and their insertion is entire artform that was likely engineered to cause pain. The idea here is they are huge, finicky and depend on precise positioning in multiple areas, there is no "easy shortcut" for their structural integrity, everything has to be perfectly assembled.
My first thought was "Pax is definitely #1 in complexity" and I was right. Those who have built one (or a whole system) will understand how humbling of an experience assembly is. I can build servers, networks, and most of a data center, but Pax got the best of me.
Wherever I have lived and shopped at IKEA, there is an option to pay ~20% extra to have your item assembled by professionals at your home. It is a steal! Unless you are genuinely interested to assemble a piece of furniture, save yourself the headache and pay for professional assembly.
IKEA was cool years ago. Unfortunately the quality reduced enormously and the price raised over it. Yesterday I saw an ad for a table and chairs for the balcony: 70€ (80$ after tax). I bought this model years ago and paid 15€ (17.60$ after tax) for the whole set.
Time estimate is way off for the Smastad loft bed, that thing was such a pain.
I think a QT code attached to a product which can visually demonstrate one video would be useful complementary to this great idea you have posted.
I’ve paid for putting twin PAXes with doors together. Two pros came in at 9 am and I was wrapping up vacuuming by 10:30. Best money spent ever
I don't believe this. The sundvik series feels way more complex than brimnes but wardrobes have the same complexity score.
Good idea. Wish I had this before I made a few purchases!
Tried 4 different items and none are listed.
IKEA once was selling good quality items. Now it's an example of enshitification. All furniture is made of cardboard instead of plywood or other type of board. That's less for more money
MCP where? /s
What's the assembly time based on?

IKEA in general is piss easy to assemble except for leveling stuff where you'd need a laser and often times another person. Some of provided tools (the famous L 6mm hex key made of cheese) and hardware (nails) tend to be very poor... and sometimes it'd need a visit to buy extra hardware - e.g. low-profile head, non-counter sunk screws to attach to the wall.

Repairing furniture or addressing mistakes tend to be fixable by a mix of wood shavings/dust and epoxy in most cases.

So the assembly would depend on previous experience, available tools, and free space.

This is a fantastic way to quantify just how bad a consumer experience this is. Flat pack furniture tends to be very awful compared to alternatives that are also often cheaper and without assembly requirements.

Everything that has come in box from a store like IKEA (or assembled in the back from a box and presented as non-flat-pack) has lasted me less than a decade. I've got a bedroom set that was built out of proper materials and it's almost a century old.

The thing that pushes consumers toward ikea is the consistency and convenience. Most things you can load and cart home by yourself same day. Moving around furniture built by the Amish is a serious logistical challenge by comparison. Maybe you could solo it with a hand truck and some experience, but it's genuinely dangerous to move some things without help. If you aren't moving frequently, the appeal of disposable furniture begins to fade quickly.

The real lesson here is how unbelievably inept the hacker news audience seems to be with any practical task. The idea someone would spend hours assembling any piece of Ikea furniture is absurd. Anything on this list can be build in minutes. I did so even as an inexperienced teenager myself with no help. If it takes you 10 hours to assemble a wardrobe you should have a disability badge.