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Furniture and furnishings from the Swedish furniture manufacturer are in great demand among Germans. There is a suitable piece of furniture for almost every budget and every type of furnishing. But nothing is as annoying as finding your own furniture among neighbors and friends. Can you furnish your home with IKEA furniture and still leave an individual touch? Is it possible to create a living room with your own character using IKEA?
We at Heimwerker.de have practical tips for assembling and customizing IKEA furniture collected. Since the furniture store has optimized its own instructions, even assembling it yourself can be fun. Assuming it’s lying all necessary utensils ready and there will be one sensible approach chosen. Here you can find out how you should go about furnishing with IKEA furniture and where you can find ideas and inspiration for your own DIY hacks, as well as some tips for saving when shopping at IKEA.
1. Preparation is the most important thing!
First, some savings tips for your next purchase at the Swedish furniture store:
- IKEA Family: With the free IKEA Family card, customers can secure a number of advantages. These include cashless shopping, exclusive offers, birthday surprises, discounts on vans, free coffee, transport security and the free interior design magazine. So if you are planning a larger purchase, you should register and take advantage of the offers.
- Shopping list: It sounds boring, maybe it is, but a shopping list and the necessary amount of discipline save a lot of money when shopping at IKEA. Check the pantries and only buy what you actually need.
- vehicle or larger rental car: Many a customer has been extremely annoyed in the past when it became clear when loading up that the new furniture didn’t fit in the car. Many had to rent an expensive rental car on site in order to safely transport the purchased products home. To avoid this, the packaging dimensions should be researched in advance on the IKEA website. These dimensions are listed under “Product Information” in every product description. If you know you have one Rent a cheap minibus If you want to, you should reserve the rental car a few days in advance. This is significantly cheaper than renting on the same day.
- Treasure trove: IKEA furniture stores have a so-called treasure trove in the checkout area. Ready-assembled exhibits or exchanged furniture with minor defects are sold there at attractive prices.
2. Sort materials carefully and prepare them
As with all DIY projects, when assembling furniture the preparation everything. This even applies to simply constructed IKEA furniture. If you start straight from the box without unpacking everything, the time required increases and a confusing chaos quickly sets in.
Who before the start of construction all individual parts and assembly materials sorted and lay it neatly on the floor will make progress much faster overall.
3. Follow assembly instructions exactly
There are no abbreviations in IKEA assembly instructions. Most people who try to speed up assembly with seemingly clever alternative solutions fail miserably. Instead, the time required increases and parts may even be damaged due to incorrect procedures. It is therefore advisable to use the one provided by the manufacturer Instructions to follow step by stepto get to your destination as quickly as possible.
If the instructions are missing or lost, there is no need to worry. Simply enter the product name in the search window on the IKEA website and the relevant document on the selected product page with one click free download.
But don’t be surprised if the message “No search results” appears. Most likely the product name was not entered correctly, which is not surprising given the often rather crazy names such as “Römskog” or “TRÅDFRI”. So it’s best to just try again or Use the menu bar to find the relevant product and copy the title from the text.
A notice: There may be slight differences in the assembly instructions as only the latest version of the instructions is provided online. Because there is little change in the basic furniture structure at IKEA, this shouldn’t be a problem.
4. Reorder assembly material
Is a part missing from the assembly instructions or due to a production error does an assembly part not fit with the rest of the furniture? This rarely happens at IKEA, but there is a simple solution for this too: with the IKEA spare parts service. Small parts with a six-digit number can be requested free of charge using the receipt. Alternatively, the parts can be handed over at the exchange counter in the IKEA stores.
5. Recommended accessories for assembly
No matter whether Billy, Poäng or Karlstad: Every piece from IKEA can become a challenge as soon as you only use the included assembly accessories when setting it up.
That’s not rare just an Allen key and dealing with it can be quite challenging, depending on the number of screws. It’s good to have a cordless screwdriver at hand for quicker and more convenient screwing. This speeds up construction significantly and is noticeably easier on your hands. A rubber mallet is useful for attaching dowels.
TIP: A carpet or other soft padding is essential for high-gloss IKEA furniture. She protect the furniture when setting up and prevent unsightly scratches in the surfaces caused by dirt on the floor.
6. Customize IKEA furniture
Despite all the advantages that IKEA furniture brings, there is one thing that can be quite annoying: namely, when you find your own furniture in the apartment of friends or relatives. Unfortunately, this happens quite often, because an IKEA interior doesn’t necessarily mean exclusivity.
This is hardly compatible with the price-conscious behavior of mass-produced goods. Nevertheless, no one has to forego individuality. But how can you ensure that the furnishings are creative and unusual even though you bought “off-the-shelf furniture”?
Tip #1: Never buy all furniture from a single furniture store. Combine different furnishings from different furniture stores.
Tip #2: Rely on artistic individuality and unique patterns and motifs. Buy pictures, paintings and anything that has recognizable patterns, such as carpets or bed linens, from suppliers and manufacturers that are less common.
Tip #3: Let your plants thrive. Fertilize them regularly and give them plenty of light. After just a short time, the standard IKEA plant will develop its own individual appearance and will no longer resemble the characterless greenhouse plant that you frantically picked up just before the checkout.
Tip #4: Never be inspired by the furnishing ideas and combination suggestions in the furniture store. Because all customers already do that. They simply buy what was arranged next to each other and are later surprised that exactly the same furnishing style can be found among relatives and neighbors.
Tip #5: Buy furniture foil, wood oil, paint and go bold. Feel free to change the color and decor according to your own ideas. Take a look at Instagram, Pinterest and other social networks and look for specific ideas for creative DIY IKEA hacks.
Many creative minds make it their goal to Customize IKEA furniture. Among other things, you can find these ideas by googling the term “Ikea hacks” on the Internet. There are also suppliers who offer bed and sofa covers specifically designed for IKEA furniture. Their patterns and colors are far less common than the standard motifs of the Swedish original.
With colors, covers and creative construction instructions, your products can be transformed into very personal, unique pieces.
Tip: We provide even more suggestions in our overview of construction plans and instructions for homemade sofa and couch furniture. It can also be worthwhile for DIY enthusiasts and individualists to take a look at our guide series on building furniture from pallets.
How do the individual names of Ikea furniture actually come about?
The unique item names at IKEA are not chosen at random. On the contrary: sofas, for example, are named after Swedish places and many bookcases are named after Scandinavian boys’ names. Behind the names are two employees in Sweden who get their inspiration for new names while driving, from dictionaries, birth announcements and reference books.
7. When all else fails: The IKEA furniture assembly service
If you would like to avoid assembling furniture with an Allen key from the outset, you can also do that Assembly service from IKEA claim. With this service you can have IKEA furniture delivered and assembled.
This is particularly worthwhile for complex systems that contain several pieces of furniture. The Price of assembly is based on a basic flat rate and around 20% of the value of the goods. You can obtain more information from customer service.
Image credits: Adobe Stock/lightpoet, Adobe Stock/Stig Alenas, Adobe Stock/Marcin (sorted chronologically or according to the order of the images used in the buying guide)