Assembly guide
The Complete Guide to Ready-to-Assemble Furniture
What flat-pack furniture is made of, how its joints work, and how to choose pieces that will still be square in five years.
What “ready-to-assemble” actually means
Ready-to-assemble furniture, usually shortened to RTA or flat-pack, ships as machined panels plus a bag of hardware. The factory has already cut every panel to size, drilled every hole and applied the finish. Your job is to join the pieces in the right order.
That division of labour is why RTA is cheaper and easier to move than built furniture. It is also why the quality of the finished piece depends heavily on two things the factory can't control: how carefully it's put together, and where it ends up living.
The panel materials, from weakest to strongest
Most of what you are paying for is the panel. The label will name one of these:
| Material | What it is | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Particleboard | Wood chips pressed with resin, covered with laminate or foil | Swells permanently if water gets into a cut edge; screws strip easily |
| MDF | Fine wood fibre pressed into a dense, smooth sheet | Very heavy; edges crumble if over-tightened; dislikes humidity |
| Plywood | Thin wood veneers glued in alternating directions | Costs more; check for voids on exposed edges |
| Solid wood | Sawn boards, often pine, rubberwood or acacia | Moves with the seasons, so joints need a little play |
| Steel frame | Powder-coated tube or angle with board or mesh shelves | Bolts loosen with vibration; re-check after a month |
In the Central Valley the swing between dry summer air and damp winter fog is enough to open up joints in cheap particleboard over a few years. If a piece is going into a garage, a laundry room or anywhere near a swamp cooler, step up to plywood or steel.
How flat-pack joints hold together
Almost every RTA design relies on the same handful of joints. Learn to recognise them and the instruction booklet gets much easier to read.
- Cam lock and bolt. A metal bolt screws into one panel; a round cam in the other panel turns and grips the bolt head, pulling the two together. It's the joint that makes most bookcases and wardrobes work.
- Dowel. A fluted wooden pin that locates two panels and stops them sliding. Dowels align the joint; they are not meant to carry the load by themselves.
- Confirmat screw. A thick, blunt-threaded screw that goes straight through one panel into the edge of another. Stronger than a cam but less forgiving if you strip it.
- Bolt and barrel nut. Found on beds, cribs and tables. A hex-socket bolt threads into a cross-dowel nut set in the rail.
The hardware identification chart shows each of these side by side.
Choosing a piece that will last
- Read the weight limits. Shelf and drawer ratings are printed in the manual or on the product page. A 30 cm wide shelf full of hardbacks can be heavier than you think.
- Look at the back panel. A thin hardboard back held on with nails does a lot of the bracing work. Pieces with a back that slots into grooves, or a full-thickness back, rack less.
- Check that a tip-over restraint is in the box. Dressers, bookcases and wardrobes should come with one. For clothing storage units sold in the U.S., federal rules now set stability requirements. See our wall anchor guide.
- Count the cam locks. More connection points along a long side generally means less sag.
- Think about the second move. Cam joints survive one or two disassemblies. Particleboard holes rarely survive more.
Before you open the box
Clear a floor area at least twice the footprint of the finished piece, lay the box flat and cut along the tape rather than through the cardboard. The flattened carton makes a good scratch-free work mat.
Then follow our step-by-step assembly method, and use the printable checklist to keep track.