Flat-pack furniture fails in predictable ways, and almost all of them start during assembly rather than during use.

Build in the right order

1. Lay everything out and count the fittings against the list before starting. A missing cam lock found halfway through is an hour lost.
2. Work on carpet or cardboard, never bare floor. Panel edges chip on tile, and the chip is where moisture gets in.
3. Leave every screw one turn loose until the whole frame is together, then tighten in sequence. Fully tightening as you go is what makes a cabinet sit at an angle.

The three fittings people skip

• The back panel. That thin hardboard sheet is the piece that stops a bookcase racking sideways. Nail it on, all the way round.
• The wall anchor. Tall shelving must be fixed to the wall in a household with children. The bracket is in the box for a reason.
• Levelling feet. Floors are not flat. Two minutes with the adjusters removes most of the wobble people blame on the furniture.

Afterwards

Re-tighten every fitting after the first month — panels settle, and a tightened joint stops the slow loosening that ends in a broken shelf. Weight limits printed on a product page are limits rather than targets.

What we do and do not do

Fittings and instructions travel in the carton. We do not send an installation team and we do not arrange a carpenter, so where a page says a piece needs two people, take that as the honest number.