How to Build Flat-Pack Furniture and Still Be Speaking Afterward

Quick answer: Count the hardware before you touch a panel, build the frame loose and square it before you tighten anything, and anchor anything tall to a wall stud. One person reads, one person builds, and you swap.

What the box says

"Assembly time: 2 hours. 1 person." Next to it is a cartoon figure holding only the little hex key, smiling the smile of someone who has never met a cam lock.

What you'll actually need

• A #2 Phillips screwdriver. A real one with a handle, not the stubby thing in bag C.
• A drill/driver with a clutch, set low. It saves your wrist, but it'll strip particleboard in half a second if you let it. If you're shopping, read what to spend on a drill and impact driver first, and leave the impact driver in the case for this job.
• A rubber mallet for dowels. Not a steel hammer. A steel hammer leaves a moon crater in the finished side.
• A tape measure, a small level and a utility knife.
• A muffin tin or egg carton for the hardware.
• Painter's tape and a marker to label panels.
• Wood glue and a handful of wooden toothpicks, for the hole you're going to strip.
• A stud finder and the right wall screws. This is the drive back. Most brands include the anti-tip strap but not the screws for your wall, because they don't know whether you've got drywall over wood studs, plaster or block. Buy them before you start.
• A second adult. The box says one person. The box is lying.

If your kit is thin, the 20 tools every homeowner needs covers everything on this list.

The steps

1. Carry the box to the room where the furniture will live and open it there. Lift with your legs, and get help for the long, heavy boxes.

A finished six-drawer dresser doesn't care how well you measured the hallway. It isn't turning that corner.

1. Flatten the empty box and use it as your work surface. Cut the tape with the knife held shallow so the blade doesn't score the panel underneath.

1. Inventory everything against the parts list. Every panel, every bag, every screw. Sort the hardware into the muffin tin by letter and put a strip of tape on each panel with its letter.

My wife suggested this the first time. I said the bags were labeled and that was good enough. At 10:40 p.m. we discovered bag 4 held two fewer cam bolts than step 11 required, and she didn't say a word. She didn't have to.

1. Read the whole manual once before you build anything. Look for the two-person icon, any part shown with an arrow, and which edge is the finished one. Those are the three details that ruin step nine.

1. Split the jobs. One reads and hands over parts, one builds. Swap at each new stage. This is the no-argument step. Most fights over flat-pack aren't about furniture. They're about two people reading the same tiny drawing upside down at the same moment and both being sure.

Eat first. Nobody has ever built a nightstand well while hungry.

1. Install dowels and cam bolts first, by hand. Tap dowels in with the mallet. Thread cam bolts in with the screwdriver until they stop. If you use the drill, run it slow with the clutch on a low number, and finish the last turn by hand.

1. Build the frame loose. Seat the cam locks just snug. That's usually a half turn or less, with the arrow pointed at the bolt. Check that pre-drilled holes face inward and the finished edges face out before each joint.

This is the step where you find out side panel B has a mirror twin, and you picked the wrong twin.

1. Square it, then tighten. Measure corner to corner both ways. When the two diagonals match within about an eighth of an inch, the case is square. Now attach the back panel, which is what actually holds it square, with nails or screws every few inches as the manual shows. Then go back and fully tighten every cam and screw.

1. Build and fit the drawers. Runners are almost always marked left and right. Believe the marks.

The drawer that sticks is rarely the drawer. It's the case, and it's step 8.

1. Anchor it to the wall. Any dresser, bookcase or tall cabinet gets the anti-tip strap, screwed into a stud with the correct fastener. Furniture tip-overs injure and kill young children, and an anchored piece doesn't fall. Do this the day you build it, not someday.

1. Leave the room better than the box found it. Break down the cardboard, vacuum up the foam crumbs, and put the leftover hardware and hex key in a labeled zip bag taped inside a drawer or the back panel. The next person who moves it, likely you, will be grateful.

Where it goes wrong

The stripped hole. The screw spins and never bites. Back it out, push glue-dipped toothpicks into the hole until it's packed, snap them flush, let the glue set, then drive the screw again by hand. A golf tee works for bigger holes. Then turn the drill clutch down, because that's what did it.

The backward panel. You notice it three steps later, when the holes for the shelf are on the outside. Stop. Back the hardware out gently and flip it. Particleboard forgives one disassembly, maybe two, so don't push your luck with a third.

The wobble. Nine times out of ten, the case wasn't square when the back went on. Loosen the back fasteners, rack the frame until the diagonals match, re-fasten, retighten. If it's still rocking, check the floor with the level. Old floors aren't flat, and felt pads or adjustable feet fix that.

The missing part. Don't improvise with a random screw from the junk drawer. Write down the part number from the manual and contact the manufacturer. Big brands will send replacement hardware. Getting the right part beats a screw that's a little too long and pokes through the front of the drawer.

When to call a pro

Call someone when the piece goes on the wall rather than against it. Floating shelves, wall cabinets and anything heavy hung over a bed or a crib need solid anchoring, and plaster, brick and concrete each want their own fasteners. Call a pro for very tall wardrobes you can't safely lift and tip upright with two people. And call an electrician for any cabinet with lighting meant to be hardwired, since codes vary by area and that's a permit job in plenty of places.

Plenty of stores and local handymen offer assembly for a fee, and there's no shame in paying it for the giant wardrobe. Plenty of sensible people spend that money to keep a Saturday.

But for the bookcase, the dresser and the kids' desk, you can do this. Count the screws, take turns with the manual, and let the person who said "let's count the screws" be right out loud. It costs you nothing, and the dresser still gets built.