Well guys i need some help. I'm looking for people who've just moved out of home for the first time/ first time buyers to answer a few questions for me please. I am currently doing research with a view to influence my design for a flat pack furniture pack with a twist, I cannot reveal many details at the moment as i am still gathering research however you guys will be kept up to date when things get rolling. if you could answer the following as honestly as possible, 1). When approaching flat pack furniture what is the most difficult thing you find? 2). Do you find flat pack furniture difficult to assemble? 3). If a pack of furniture was offered for £70 including a desk, a chair and a bedside table would you find this value for money? 4). When/if Looking for new furniture, what are the main considerations for making a purchase. Is it aesthetic/fashion based or is it necessity driving your purchase? 5). Have you ever bought furniture from the following retailers:- Ikea MFI Argos Tesco/asda House of Fraiser Habitat Pottery barn 6). What was the thing which annoyed you when selecting products from these retailers? Was it a design issue like :- Hurt yourself using included tools found using an instruction manual difficult found the instructions included to complicated found the materials were suspect/broke easily found quality issues with the furniture parts were missing so you couldn't assemble the darn thing properly other (please include reason) If your not comfortable announcing your opinions, please feel free to pm me, thanks!
1. Knowing what will withstand a large person coming in drunk and falling over it 2. Yes, the only flatpack I ever bought was my double bed 3. I'd not buy it purely because I'd be inclined to think that it would be of inferior quality 4. Necessity 5. Ikea 6. Quality issues and breakages Hope that helps
If you're going to be designing stuff for students (or people like students) it might be useful if you could dis-assemble and re-assemble it without the thing turning to dust and shards of chipboard because these kinds of people move house quite a bit. Second thing, flat pack furniture that doesn't collapse if you try and move it about single handedly. Moriquendi
1). When approaching flat pack furniture what is the most difficult thing you find? Something that's not ugly/sharp corners/looks like it will collapse. 2). Do you find flat pack furniture difficult to assemble? Nope. 3). If a pack of furniture was offered for £70 including a desk, a chair and a bedside table would you find this value for money? GBP/USD conversion figured in, yes provided that it's not complete junk quality. I avoid stuff that's obviously crap, but at that price there wouldn't be a whole lot of disappointment if it was. 4). When/if Looking for new furniture, what are the main considerations for making a purchase. Is it aesthetic/fashion based or is it necessity driving your purchase? Usually necessity, but aesthetics factor in when deciding which item to go with. 5). Have you ever bought furniture from the following retailers:- Ikea only. But that and PB are the only ones that exist in the US, AFAIK. 6). What was the thing which annoyed you when selecting products from these retailers? Was it a design issue like :- No issues other than the long drive to the store.
1) trying to keep all the miscellaneous pieces organized 2) Depends on how badly it is made 3) I would be VERY skeptical 4) Mostly necessity, followed by build quality, then look. 5) IKEA 6) Quality. MDF is not an all purpose wood.
Been on my own for a good few years now, but just got out of a bad situation, so most of my furniture got donated to the "unruly c***" charity, and I'm in the market for a few things. 1). Nothing, absolutely love it. They're cheap, easily moved by a single person (before being built), and often don't look too naff. 2). Not in the least. I've had to build so much furniture, exercise equipment, and other flat-pack style merchandise, coupled with my years as a tech, and I've yet to come across a bit of flat-pack furniture that baffles me. 3). Yes, if it wasn't a load of tripe. Seems far too under-valued for anything that would stand the long-term, but as a temporary solution, that would be the perfect amount, as you're not putting out a lot of cash, but getting a lot in return (although you'll be replacing it in a couple years, rather than in 10-20 as with something of value). 4). Form follows function, always, unless the form is so obscene that it detracts from my want to use said items. Though having said this, utility-fashioned items that don't offer much to the eye often get replaced much faster than something that looks the part, as I would rather fix the nice looking thing, than the nasty bit of scrap wood in the corner. 5). Ikea, as I believe it's the only one of those over here (my dresser is from there!) 6). Selection. They've got lots, but either don't offer anything in my choice of colour (again detracting from the item enough to where I will not want to use the item), or don't offer one that'll suit my needs (not big/small enough, not enough/too much features, ect). Aside from that, always been wonderful (bought old TV stand at ikea out of their discount bin, box was almost entirely destroyed, and the thing was less than half price, but everything inisde was perfect, all the bits were there, and everything was undamaged).
1). When approaching flat pack furniture what is the most difficult thing you find? Nothing, its quite straight forward. 2). Do you find flat pack furniture difficult to assemble? Not at all, but the S shape allen keys provided are rubbish. At least I have my own. 3). If a pack of furniture was offered for £70 including a desk, a chair and a bedside table would you find this value for money? Yes, but would be skeptical of quality and durability. I'd give it a go though. 4). When/if Looking for new furniture, what are the main considerations for making a purchase. Is it aesthetic/fashion based or is it necessity driving your purchase? Necessity definately, but always go for something that doesn't look too out of place. Careful design however can make something look good, be easy to assemble and be very efficient. 5). Have you ever bought furniture from the following retailers:- Yes, Argos and Ikea. 6). What was the thing which annoyed you when selecting products from these retailers? Quality of the materials, chipboard is all well and good if you never plan on moving or disassembling it - they also shouldn't use nails. All flat pack stuff seems a bit flimsy too, just having some hardboard nailed to the back of a wardrobe doesn't really enhance its stability. Also, the tops of wardrobes etc bend to easily so if you put something on top it bends and restricts door/drawer movement. A solid top or some reinforcement would help no end.
1). When approaching flat pack furniture what is the most difficult thing you find? The physical size of the pack is always the size of the largest item - this can be a problem getting for example, a wardrobe in the car. 2). Do you find flat pack furniture difficult to assemble? Nope. 3). If a pack of furniture was offered for £70 including a desk, a chair and a bedside table would you find this value for money? Depends on the quality - veneer thickness (it's gonna be chipboard at that price), quality of fixtures & fittings. Quantity wise though, it's definitely something that would make me take a second look. 4). When/if Looking for new furniture, what are the main considerations for making a purchase. Is it aesthetic/fashion based or is it necessity driving your purchase? Necessity. 5). Have you ever bought furniture from the following retailers:- Ikea - Yes MFI - Yes Argos - Yes Tesco/asda - No House of Fraiser - No Habitat - No Pottery barn - No, I'm not from that episode of Friends 6). What was the thing which annoyed you when selecting products from these retailers? Was it a design issue like :- Hurt yourself using included tools - No found using an instruction manual difficult - No found the instructions included to complicated - No found the materials were suspect/broke easily - No found quality issues with the furniture - No parts were missing so you couldn't assemble the darn thing properly other (please include reason) - Finding a clear space large enough to assemble it.
1). Getting something sturdy enough to hold all my gear and all my beer. 2). No, I find the instructions pretty useless though. 3). No, because I don't have a bed for a bedside table, I prefer to pick things like chairs individually, too. 4). Function over form, 99% of the time. So, necessity. 5). Never, personally, from any of them. I've assembled a number of Ikea items, though. 6). Ikea stuff, for me at least, is usually missing screws etc. Never a major annoyance, but hey. Would be nice to get everything. Side note: I've moved twice in the last five weeks, once with parent, once to my own (unfurnished) flat.
1) The space to lie all the parts out before I assemble them. Small house ya see. 2) Not at all, i've find it quite fun to do. Must be the engineer in me I've made all the regular stuff, beds, chairs, tables, wardrobes etc 3) Sounds like a good deal, though if I didnt like the of it I wouldn't purchase just because it was cheep. 4) Roughly equal, maybe slightly towards necessity. If there were two products and they were both nice but one more so, but the other had a feature I thought would be useful, i'd take that. 5) ikea and argos. 6) No issues really, I guess when purchasing from ikea the sheer size of the warehouse and the vast choice means you can spend a little bit more time than you hoped looking for what you need. but, obviously, thats not a design gripe
1. Assembling instructions and pieces properly labeled. 2. Nope 3. Good price, I wouldn't expect it to be a family heirloom though 4. Necessity is first, then fashion. If it's plain wood, I can always stain it a color I like. 5. IKEA 6. Sometimes pieces weren't labeled from Ikea so it was a search for the correct one. May I reccomend some design features for a desk? 1.Take into consideration that flat screens are getting more popular, but CRTs stil exist. It's hard to get a happy medium for a screen platform though. Maybe feature 2 designs? one for CRT and one for flat? 2. In any desk I've ever looked into buying, there is never a proper place for blank disk rolls. I always had to find some place to put them, usually ended up being awkward. That's why I built a place for mine on the desk I built. 3. make sure your instructions match up properly with labels on the pieces. Maybe have a few friends put an item together as a test and have them rate the instructions? I by all means don't know anything about selling furniture, but I hope my input may be of some use to you.
1) The crappy allen keys you get. 2) Not really. 3) Depends on the features and build quality, really. 4) Function 5) IKEA and Argos 6) Hurt yourself using included tools - yup!
I haven't moved recently, but I handle flat-pack semi-regularly, so... 1). When approaching flat pack furniture what is the most difficult thing you find? Weight and/or bulk of items in packaging. Carry handles would be nice, or wider straps that don't cut into the hands. 2). Do you find flat pack furniture difficult to assemble? No. 3). If a pack of furniture was offered for £70 including a desk, a chair and a bedside table would you find this value for money? Depends on quality. 4). When/if Looking for new furniture, what are the main considerations for making a purchase. Is it aesthetic/fashion based or is it necessity driving your purchase? A mixture of both. I want something that does the job, but I want it to match. 5). Have you ever bought furniture from the following retailers:- *snip* I've personally bought from Argos and Office World, but I handle items from a variety of retailers, mainly Argos, Homebase, Ikea and unidentified others. 6). What was the thing which annoyed you when selecting products from these retailers? Was it a design issue like :- found the materials were suspect/broke easily found quality issues with the furniture parts were missing so you couldn't assemble the darn thing properly Found instructions missing. Found instructions mis-translated. Found instructions plain wrong in either explanation or illustration. Found pieces don't fit together properly.
I usually do a flat pack for someone that needs help when i'm visiting thier new place, so i've had a few drinks and they are still easy enough to slap together. The nicest ones are those that only need one tool to put the hole thing together such as an allen key or screwdriver, which is provided in the package, and you don't worry about loosing any tools as there is only one! The worst thing is trying to put one together using a couple of knives, because they've just moved in and they don't have any tools, at all. It was mentioned by Moriquendi that it would be good to have them strong enough to assemble & re-assemble without falling apart, which is true. I like those rotary/twist/locks/attachments which are about 5cm in diameter and 1cm wide. They lock onto a stepped screw, are very strong, and can be used again & again, but i don't know what they are called I have done a few desks & entertainment units, where i had to add just a small piece of wood, usually underneath the centre area and out of sight, to prevent bending, which should have been part of the kit!
1. visualizing what it will look like if there is no display model in the store. 2. no 3. decent enough, but i would probably prefer to buy the items seperately. 4. function first, but form is definitely important too. 5. ikea yes, don't have the others over here. 6. the crappy little tools ikea gives you annoy me, but i can use my own so it's not an issue.
