Fordyce Maxwell: The words ‘easily assembled’ in a flat pack can produce a cold sweat

‘THE cheque’s in the post” and “I was just thinking about you” are usually quoted as examples of great lies. I think that “easily assembled” tops them both. Opening a flat pack to find those words on the instruction leaflet can produce a cold sweat and mild hyperventilation.

My usual tactic after seeing them is to set the parts to be “easily assembled” neatly against a wall, preferably in a corner, and meditate for a time. Length of meditation varies: usually only a day or two until Tom or Jacqueline visit and assemble whatever is waiting in half an hour, but can extend to a week when I finally accept I’ll have to do it myself.

In fact we buy few flat packs now. We did when younger and cash-strapped, and the scars still linger. Drawers – “Chester’s drawers” as Susie described her first set as a six-year-old, misinterpreting “chest of” – were almost manageable. MFI cabinets were trickier and usually had one vital screw or dowel rod missing.

Even at this remove I can argue that the ultimately shoogly effect was not entirely my fault, although the gash where I hit one with a hammer in frustration certainly was.

Chairs, a table and single beds from Ikea were, by my standards, straightforward. A power screwdriver would have helped, but brute strength got us there.

The killer was a wardrobe. Why we bought a flat-pack one is still discussed occasionally, usually after I’ve retrieved something from it and tried to close a door. It is good-quality solid wood and most of it we assembled fairly readily. But could we get, a rhetorical question, the doors to hang level?

As many others must have done – oh, come on, let’s all be honest about this - I lost count of the number of times I stepped back and said “They’re level now”, only to concede “No, I’m damned if they are.”

Since then, any furniture bought has come ready for use. Recent flat-pack work has been confined to a TV stand, a child’s wheelbarrow and a child’s high chair, and it gives me great pleasure to report that these challenges have produced a remarkable run of success.

Partly that was because Tom put the TV stand together while I offered advice, but the wheelbarrow was all my own work. Three hands would have been useful, but the wheel eventually ran true.

True triumph came only days ago with the high chair. After setting aside at least an hour, I put it together in three minutes thanks to a system of slotted inserts and spring-loaded press studs. My thanks to the designer, and why aren’t wardrobes made like that? «