Assembling the IKEA Expedit workstation…expediently?

There are several things you’ll need when assembling IKEA furniture.

A big cup of coffee (or your caffeinated beverage of choice).

Tools! I purchased this toolkit at Target after I moved into my own apartment, and it’s the best twenty-something bucks I’ve spent in a long time.

An Allen wrench, thoughtfully provided by IKEA. The Allen wrench manufacturers of the world must highly covet the IKEA account.

Patience. I have no visual representation of patience for you. A good understanding of spatial dimensions doesn’t hurt either.

IKEA furniture typically comes flat-packed in large cardboard boxes, which you can rip open to view the large Swedish puzzle pieces, a bag of screws, bolts, nuts, and a diagram illustrating how to put the item together. There is no text on the instruction book, probably so IKEA can use the same booklets internationally without translating everything. I was putting together the Expedit bookcase and workstation in black/brown.

I was able to understand the little cartoon character’s instructions fairly well, but I ran into problems connecting the wood panels with the wooden pegs. I [...]

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