If you love everything there is to love about IKEA (the prices, the selection, the tasty meatballs) but wince when it comes to their RTA (ready-to-assemble), flatpack furniture pieces, and the often confusing, wordless instructions that come with them, know you’re not alone. It can be overwhelming to say the least, especially if you don’t consider yourself handy.
If you’re looking to avoid that frustration, hotukdeals created the Flat-Pack Stress Index — basically, they got 100 participants to assemble flatpack furniture and tracked their heart rate and heart rate variance to see how much they stressed and exerted themselves putting together some of IKEA’s most popular furniture items. Which IKEA furniture is the most stressful to put together? Here’s what they found.
PAX wardrobes
PAX wardrobes seem to be one of the most stressful items to build from IKEA, scoring a whopping 100 out of 100 for stress (measured by heart rate, heart rate variance, and completion rate). For one, there are a lot of pieces you have to assemble, and you have to choose what pieces to order from the retailer. These wardrobes, while affordable, also come in many boxes, which can be stressful for many people. In this study, only half the people completed the piece on time.
BRIMNES storage bed
Next up on the stress scale is the BRIMNES storage bed. I can speak from experience on this one as I bought this bed for my teenage son and can also confirm there was some colorful language used during its assembly.
HEMNES day bed
The HEMNES day-bed came in right behind with near-identical results with “heart rate rises of 18% and HRV drops of 24% respectively.” It also comes with a lot of parts, boxes, and general anxiety for the casual DIYer. Both pieces scored just “4 out of 10 in satisfaction,” according to the participants.
BESTA TV bench
Rounding out the top four is the BESTA bench, another product at IKEA that can be stressful for some to assemble. If you do finally get it sorted, a gentle reminder that this bench can only hold around 100-150 pounds, depending on which type you order. There are a lot of little screws, making it hard for those with larger hands. Again, they are reasonably priced, so the effort may be worth it.
Hotukdeals has the full list of results.
While putting together furniture can be overwhelming, you could look at assembling IKEA furniture as a challenge of sorts where you can declare yourself a winner when all is said and done… even if you have a few (or ten) extra pieces left over when you’re finished.
