Flatpacking: How To Speedrun Your Relationship Into the Bin
Flatpack furniture offers us the dream that you really can receive an entire desk or set of drawers that has slightly more structural integrity than the box it came packed in. Why buy something second hand when you can make something that looks secondhand once you’re done making it?
The only thing with less integrity than the flimsy Weetbix desk once it has been constructed is your relationship. Frayed and worn it emerges from the greatest challenge you’ll have ever faced together, instructions written in Chinese, Spanish, French, and English which you didn’t read. Visual cues in the illustrations helpfully fail to alert you to the tiny notch in one integral panel which doesn’t become a problem until you go to fit the final piece to the desk, suddenly clearly showing you the error of your ways. A decision must be made. Do you deconstruct the entire set so you can spin the panel around, or do you decide that you didn’t reaaaallly need a drawer that goes all the way in properly. These are the hard decisions life is made of.
Once the desk is complete you stand back with your partner and look upon your mighty works, acutely aware that if you try to move it to another room now it’ll dissolve like an actor’s career three minutes into a bad take on Twitter.
Helpfully someone in Sweden decided to sprinkle in a few extra nuts and bolts, or at least you hope so, because otherwise you have no idea where all these extra leftover parts go. Perhaps the desk is being held together by the pure rage of a Sunday afternoon ill spent.
According to a survey 44% of people in the UK couldn’t assemble kitset furniture, which at least puts my mind at ease of them ever going and having another crack at starting another empire.
The news is littered with cutsie articles about relationships ending up on the rocks over a flat packed shelf. A CivicScience survey found that 17% of couples have a scrap with each other while building stuff. One psychologist reports that they make couples build things together as a communication exercise. Some people just like to see the world burn. Personally I’ve found the best way to communicate with my partner when building something is to kindly suggest they put their feet up with a book on the other side of the house while I struggle around on the floor like I’m getting swallowed by a python.
An old Stuff article suggests that if we really want to avoid arguments we should hire IKEA’s assembly service. But if I wanted someone to make my desk for me I’d prefer them to do it out of sight out of mind at the factory, rather than in my home as some sort of performative emasculating ritual while I feel like a stranger in my own home.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m glad the gigantic blue cube of NIDO down the road from my house went into receivership minutes after opening.
