IKEA: hardest piece you've assembled?

[onfence]

I've put together quite a few things from there, but this has to take the cake: PAX UGGDAL closet sliding doors.

They have like a million pieces and 40 not-perfectly-clear steps, not to mention really requiring 2 ppl to assemble. Of course, parts of it are glass, so it's also heavy and fragile. These are just for the doors not even the rest of the closet (which was easy). What's yours?

 

[PinkLucy]

After spending over a day putting together an Ikea wall unit with a variety of shelves and doors, I swore I would never assemble Ikea furniture again.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

All the one's that come with missing pieces!

 

[gabe]

Everything! But a small sideboard was the worst, i had no idea something so small could have so many pieces

 

[whatever]

The Pax wardrobes. I measured my ceiling height, looked up the height of the unit, called customer service to ask for the tolerance on their dimensions, and after being reassured that they were good to within a 1/16 I went ahead and bought them. Apparently 1/16 in Sweden is closer to a 5/16 in Toronto. I spent two hours with an angle grinder trying to shave enough off my ceiling to make the damn things fit, and ended up using a car jack to put them into their final position. They're now part of the condo.

Other than that, the stupid Komplement shoe rack. It's not hard so much as unbearably tedious. It has well over 100 pieces.

 

[PinkLucy]

Good to know. I was thinking about Pax AND the shoe rack. Maybe I'll keep looking.

 

[onfence]

The PAX system is simply unbeatable, though, for the myriad of combinations you can devise for your clothes, shoes, etc not to mention the value for $.

 

[junctionist]

They do offer assembly options, but add 15% for the privilege. I assembled a big Besta wall unit over the course of a couple of days. The TV stand had instructions with one ambiguous drawing on how to fit together two large panels. There were two possible ways of fitting the panels, and the manual's drawing didn't clarify things at all. So I made a mistake which I realize only after further assembling it. Removing the two panels was impossible without ruining the pressboard and veneer, but IKEA replaced the panels without problems.

 

[PinkLucy]

It was the Besta system we also wrestled with. At the time I remember thinking that the 15% would be worth it.

 

[Hank]

The Besta Burs TV bench (not sure if that's the same as the wall unit mentioned above). It looks simple, but it took my girlfriend and I about 5 hours of solid work to put it together (we made one mistake, but nothing huge). It looks nice once assembled, but it's got a lot more parts than you'd think it should have. Oh, and it weighed over 150 pounds.

http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/80133930

 

[junctionist]

The Besta Burs TV bench (not sure if that's the same as the wall unit mentioned above). It looks simple, but it took my girlfriend and I about 5 hours of solid work to put it together (we made one mistake, but nothing huge). It looks nice once assembled, but it's got a lot more parts than you'd think it should have. Oh, and it weighed over 150 pounds.

http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/80133930

No, that's not the I have. I have the one that allows for stacking more shelving/storage units on top.

 

[khris]

This: http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/25162500

Worst piece of crap ever. The little plastic pieces that hold the mirror in place have to be angled just right, or the whole thing ends up not working. Even just having 1 piece off messes everything up, and you have to drill another hole in your wall.

I took it back and got just plain square mirrors, that use a sticker to hold them onto the wall. They look great in my hallway.

 

[Mustapha]

Bear in mind that most Ikea furniture will not hold up well if at all during a move. Particle board held by dowels isn't lifetime furniture.

 

[PinkLucy]

So true. My Ikea wall units will be staying put when I sell.

 

[Epi]

I'd like to chime in on the PAX wardrobe as well. The damn thing is extremely heavy, requires two people to assemble (not to mention taking out of the car is ridiculous as it's huge AND heavy). And of course because you have to assemble it lying flat but eventually have it standing up, you need to do a little trigonometry or else like myself realize that while it fits, you can't actually arc it up to stand it up.