Flat-pack assembly has a reputation it partly deserves, and most of the difficulty comes from a small number of avoidable mistakes made in the first ten minutes.
Before You Start
Clear a space considerably larger than the finished piece. Lay something down to protect both the floor and the panels, since a laminate face scratched against a hard floor is permanent.
Open the hardware bag onto a tray or a bowl rather than the floor. A single lost cam lock stops the whole job.
Count Everything First
Check every panel and every fitting against the parts list before starting. Manufacturers pack by count and errors happen, and finding out at step twelve is considerably worse than finding out at step zero.
Ranges that verify the count before packing, of the kind described at yeshomy.net, reduce the risk, and checking it yourself takes five minutes and removes it.
The Rules That Prevent Most Problems
- Read the whole instruction sheet before picking up a tool
- Identify which face is the finished side of each panel, and mark it
- Do not fully tighten anything until the carcass is square
- Work on the floor, not a table, for anything large
- Follow the sequence rather than doing the interesting parts first
- Keep the box until the piece is assembled and confirmed correct
Do Not Tighten Until the End
The single most useful piece of advice. A carcass assembled and fully tightened panel by panel will not pull square, because each joint has been locked before the whole thing could settle.
Assemble everything loosely, check the piece is square by measuring the diagonals, then tighten. Equal diagonals means square, and a square carcass is why drawers run properly.
Cam Locks
The circular fittings that do most of the work in flat-pack. A bolt screws into one panel and the cam in the adjacent panel turns to grip it.
The common error is turning the cam the wrong way, which does nothing. It tightens clockwise in most designs, and there is usually an arrow moulded into it.
Cams can be re-tightened later, which is worth knowing when a piece loosens after a year.
Two People for Some Steps
Most pieces are a one-person job with two or three steps where a second pair of hands makes the difference between straightforward and frustrating.
Usually those are lifting a carcass upright and fitting a back panel. Reading ahead identifies them so you can ask someone before you are holding something.
The Back Panel
Thin hardboard, frequently pinned rather than screwed, and it is what makes a cabinet rigid rather than a parallelogram.
Fitting it while the carcass is square, and pinning all the way round rather than at the corners, is what stops a piece racking over time.
Afterwards
Re-tighten the fixings after a few weeks. Everything settles, and a cabinet that developed a wobble usually just needs the cams nipped up.