My New Ikea Furniture

I bought a whole lot of stuff from Ikea recently.

Because I'm a cheapskate, I wanted to save assemblying fee and decided to do it myself. So I just paid RM65 for delivery charges.

When the Ikea fellas delivered the stuff I started work immediately.

The Ikea stuff was enough to fill my entire living room.

I've assembled bookcases of varying sizes from Giant and Jusco, and they were a breeze. That gave me the confidence of doing this job similarly well.

The advertisements always tells us that it's easy to do-it-yourself; just follow the instructions and you would be fine, yadda yadda yadda.

But in reality, it ain't that easy.

What makes assemblying Ikea furniture difficult is the sheer weight of these furniture and the number of instructions that could go up to more than 25 steps for one piece of furniture. But the positive side about heavy furniture is that you know you're getting quality stuff.

I've learned my lesson about buying cheap furniture.

When I moved into my apartment about 2 years ago, I bought a brand new 3-seater Cavenzi sofa that costs only RM399. I was delighted because it was not only cheap, but it was so light that I could lift it with one finger like Mrs Incredible while mopping my apartment.

However, the damn thing caved in after just 3 months. And mind you, that sofa was hardly used.

The fucked-up Cavenzi sofa.

Anyway, after following the Ikea instructions to the T, I still made minor mistakes like banging a hole in my beloved Billy bookcase! But luckily the hole is small and hidden. Otherwise bang balls, man ...

In the end I managed to assemble these furniture on my own:

Malm Chest of 6-Drawers

Two Hemnes side tables

And my favourites - two Billy bookcases and a 3-seater Ektorp sofa.

Now my living room looks like a page from the annual Ikea brochure, hahaha.

After the long hours of screwing, hammering, lifting and carrying, my whole body was aching for a few days. Terrible, man! Didn't know assembling furniture could be that stressful.

Throwing away the packaging was another bitch.

Here's a tip for you: Unless you're a carpenter or a handy person, pay the assembling fee (I think it's 5% of the furniture cost). Trust me, it's money well spent compared to you breaking back trying to do it yourself and making mistakes in the process.