Would you like to hire a professional to source and assemble flat pack furniture for you? Just want someone to put it together? Or do you want to know the cost of the raw materials so that you can assemble them yourself? Whatever the case, we'll provide you with all the information you need in the following cost guide.
This article will prove very useful if you tick any of those boxes as we'll discuss the cost of assembling a wide range of flat pack furniture including bedside cabinets, wardrobes and dining tables.
Flat pack or ready to assemble furniture is a type of furniture which comes in the form of easy to assemble components rather than a pre-assembled unit. The popularity of flat pack furniture is down to the fact that they can be assembled and disassembled with relative ease. Further, they are generally more eco-friendly and can save on expenses.
The average cost of flat pack furniture assembly will vary a lot depending on the furniture being assembled. However, as a general average, it will most likely end up around £60 to £80. For now, we are concerned only with the cost of hiring someone to assemble the furniture for you. As for the supply costs, we will look at those toward the end of this section.
A flat pack assembler will charge roughly £20 an hour for their service, and often they will charge for the first hour regardless. So take some of the lower estimates given in this section with a grain of salt. It may only cost £10 to £20 to have a bedside cabinet assembled although if it's particularly large, this could land closer to £40.
Chest of drawers may cost £10 to £20 to assemble if there are two drawers present but for a three drawer option, expect an assembly cost of around £15 to £30.
To have a single bed assembled should cost £10 to £20, roughly £15 to £20 for a double bed or around £25 to £35 to have a bunk bed put together.
You'll probably be charged £10 to have an average dining table assembled or around £20 for a larger unit.
It will cost around £10 to £20 to have a small bookcase assembled or approximately £15 to £20 for a large bookcase. It may cost £20 to £40 to have a regular wardrobe put together, but about £60 to £80 should you wish to have a wardrobe with two sliding doors assembled.
Now let's take a look at the cost of supplies. If you'd like to assemble the items yourself, this will be your only expense. Still, if you do not yet have the materials and would like a labourer to assemble and source the furniture for you, the supply costs will need to be added to your overall bill.
On average, a flat pack bedside cabinet will cost £40 to £50. To purchase a chest of drawers will likely be priced at £50 to £70 for a two-drawer option or £80 to £100 if you avail of a three-drawer product. To buy wardrobe flat pack furniture cost is about £180 to £200 or around £250 to £270 if you were to go with a sliding door wardrobe.
Flat pack beds tend to cost roughly £150 to £170 for a single bed, £200 to £240 for a double bed, and £180 to £200 for a bunk bed. Expect to pay approximately £80 to £100 for a small bookcase or £240 to £260 for a larger option.
As for a dining table, you'd likely pay between £400 and £500 in total to purchase one. There are a range of factors that can influence the cost of flat pack furniture assembly. Among those factors are the type of material, size of the furniture and the specific brand/product.
Where you live is important, as flat pack assemblers tend to charge higher rates in some parts of the country than in others with contractors charging more in the southeast of England and London in particular but less in general in the north of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Another important cost-affecting factor is ease of access.
| Type of Furniture | Supply Cost | Flatpack Furniture Assembly Cost | Cost of Supply + Assembly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small to Medium Bedside Cabinet | £40 to £50 | £10 to £20 | £50 to £70 |
| Large Bedside Cabinet | £40 to £50 | £30 to £40 | £70 to £90 |
| 2-drawer Chest of Drawers | £50 to £70 | £10 to £20 | £60 to £90 |
| 3-drawer Chest of Drawers | £80 to £100 | £30 to £40 | £110 to £140 |
| Single Bed | £150 to £170 | £10 to £20 | £160 to £190 |
| Double Bed | £200 to £240 | £15 to £20 | £215 to £260 |
| Bunk Bed | £180 to £200 | £25 to £35 | £205 to £235 |
| Small Bookcase | £80 to £100 | £10 to £20 | £90 to £120 |
| Large Bookcase | £240 to £260 | £15 to £20 | £255 to £280 |
| Small to Medium Dining Table | £400 to £500 | £10 | £410 to £510 |
| Large Dining Table | £400 to £500 | £20 | £420 to £520 |
| Wardrobe | £180 to £200 | £20 to £40 | £200 to £240 |
| Wardrobe (2 Sliding Doors) | £250 to £270 | £60 to £80 | £310 to £350 |
We'll now take a look at the various types of flat pack furniture in more detail. It may be the case that you want to add some new furniture to your home but would like to know what options are the most appealing first.
In each of the following subsections, we'll break down the features, pros & cons and costs of various pieces of furniture. Any expenses mentioned in this section relate to supply costs unless otherwise stated.
Perfect for storing items that are easy to reach, for holding up a lamp or as a way to keep a book next to you to pick up for a bedtime read, bedside cabinets are a simple but very useful installation. There are many types to choose from, including ones with a separate drawer and others with a functioning door.
On average, flat pack bedside cabinets cost around £40 to £50, making them the cheapest type of furniture on our list. Bedside cabinets can be made from various materials, including various woods (e.g. plywood, walnut, oak, solid wood, and engineered wood), glass, metal, and natural fibre.
✔ Useful type of flat pack bedroom furniture
✔ Cheap flat pack furniture
✔ Good example of flat pack oak furniture
✖ You may prefer a floating nightstand
As with a bedside table, chest of drawers can be made from many materials ranging from oak to aluminium to wood effect. You'll also have different options when it comes to the number of drawers you'd prefer with a 2-drawer flat pack unit costing roughly £50 to £70 but a 3-drawer option coming with an £80 to £100 price tag.
Chest of drawers can improve organisation, save space and add style and quality to a bedroom. They are also ideal for storage in a child's room.
✔ Relatively cheap form of flat pack furniture
✔ Can improve storage and organisation
✔ Adds style and quality
✔ 2- or 3-drawer options
✖ Built-in storage for a bed may be preferable
Regardless of type, a flat-pack bed generally consists of a base, two end panels, and a side panel. The base will either come in a solid form or comprise a variety of removable parts. The main advantage of a flat pack bed vs a regular bed is that the former option is cheaper and easier to assemble. Cost-wise a single kit bed costs about £150 to £170.
It would set you back around £200 to £240 for a double bed, or £180 to £200 for a bunk bed. As far as the cost of assembling flat pack furniture goes, bed assemblies are relatively expensive.
✔ Cheaper than a regular bed
✔ Easier to put together than a standard bed
✖ One of the more costly types of flat pack furniture
Next up, we have flat pack wardrobes. Most of these units cost around £180 to £200, but you can expect a price tag of roughly £250 to £270 should you want an option with two sliding doors. The latter is also more expensive to assemble, meaning that option two's supply and fit cost would end up about twice the price of the former.
Wardrobes are a great way to make better use of space in a bedroom as well as being an optimal way of storing and arranging clothes.
✔ Great way to use space and store clothes
✔ Variety of options
✔ Cheaper than a regular wardrobe
✖ Expensive
There are many flat pack dining table designs on the market including those with pull out sections, integrated draws, and some with extra features. In most cases, the assembly shouldn't be too complicated and will probably take less than an hour.
Trying to fit a premade dining table through doors and narrow hallways can be tricky, which is one of the advantages of a flat-pack dining table. It can be assembled in the kitchen without any fuss involved in getting it there.
Expect to pay roughly £400 to £500 for this type of dining table. This price tag won't necessarily save you much over another option although the fitting cost will probably end up around £20.
✔ No-fuss set up
✔ The perfect focal point for any kitchen
✖ Costly
✖ Not necessarily cheaper than a regular dining table
Last but not least there is the option of a ready to assemble bookcase. Expect a cost of around £80 to £100 for a small bookcase or £240 to £260 for a large bookcase. While fairly easy to assemble and easily achieved in under an hour, you won't have the items required, say to mount it to a wall. For this, you'd need anchor bolts or raw plugs. Therefore, this would cost extra, although only by around £10 to £20.
A bookcase is more than a way to store books as it is a great option to display your collections, adding aesthetic value to the room and acting as a decorative installation in and of itself. There's no doubt that seeing your favourite titles when you walk into a room is a positive either way and that certainly beats a plain wall with nothing in front of it.
Further, it's a great way to organise your books while making them extremely accessible too. Just decided you'd like to re-read the fourth book in a classic novel series? There it is on the second row, neatly played between books number three and five.
✔ Cheaper than a regular option
✔ Easy to find a small flat pack bookcase for less than a hundred quid
✔ Perfect way to store, display and organise books
✖ You may accidentally buy a bookcase that's too big for use, thus wasting money
✖ Risk of purchasing a bookcase that's too small
First, you'll need to decide if you want to purchase the furniture and set it up yourself, just buy the furniture and have someone else install it, or have someone supply and fit the items. As for purchasing the items, you'll need to consider your budget, preference, and needs.
Once you've made up your mind in both of these areas, if applicable, you'll want to find an appropriate and experienced flat pack furniture assembler and ideally someone with lots of references or/and positive online reviews.
With your own research, such as by Googling' Flat pack assembly near me', you should seek quotes from several potential providers before picking the right one for you. Alternatively, you could ask those you know whether they can offer any recommendations.
The process of flat pack assembly will vary significantly depending on the flat pack furniture fittings in question. In this step, we'll break down the setup method generally required for the different types of furniture discussed in the previous section.
Though there are many types of flat pack beds available, each option's core structure is fundamentally the same, that being, a side panel, two end panels, and a base in a solid form or with the use of removable slats.
There will be a few other requirements for a bunk bed, such as that the top section will be constructed as a flat pack table would be with the use of supporting rods to hold it in place, providing security and safety.
As with a bed, a wardrobe can come in different shapes and sizes, but ultimately, the design is based on the same key principles: an external frame, doors that either open or slide along on runners and a soft or hard backing.
You can also find a range of dining table designs, whether with pull out parts, built-in draws, or other added features. Broadly, here is what's needed:
Putting together a bookcase is exceptionally easy, as this type of ready to assemble furniture is very simple.
Why not pay to have a few other jobs completed at the same time as flat pack furniture assembly? Decorating usually costs about £160 a day plus materials. The hourly installation rate is around £16 to £18 for carpet, £19 to £21 for tile, £20 for hardwood, or £17 to £18 for vinyl/linoleum.
Depending on the type and numbers of lights, it will generally cost somewhere close to £100 to have new lighting fitted. A planning permission application would likely set you back by £150 to £250. Building regulations approval would likely cost £200 to £250 altogether.
You can build flat pack furniture by yourself if you'd like and the instructions are generally straightforward enough. If you've any doubts though, or would rather not deal with any of the hassle that could be involved, you can always hire a flat pack assembler.
Planning permission approval and building regulations doesn't typically apply to flat pack furniture assembly, unless you have any unique plans in mind that would involve additional work that would surpass your permitted development rights, etc.
Otherwise, you won't need anyone to sign off on your work. However, you should always take the right precautions, especially if working with tools like a drill or hammer. Of course, if you don't follow the instructions to a T, you risk a botched job and even one that can't be fixed with ease if you accidentally break anything in the process.
Flat pack furniture can save on money and time, but they are basic designs at the end of the day that can break or unravel if not put together correctly. In general, they won't offer the same durability or possibly aesthetics as regular versions of given furniture units.
We have hundreds of homeowners each day checking the prices on YourJobCost before hiring a tradesperson. That way they've already got a good idea of how much they should be quoted.
Swedish designer Gillis Lundgren invented modern flat pack furniture in the 1950s. Lundgren wanted to find a way to transport a table in his car, so he cut off the legs before later re-assembling the table.
This acted as the inspiration for IKEAs first line of ready to assemble furniture. However other designers are credited with earlier attempts at flat pack furniture including Louise Brigham and Erie J. Sauder.
IKEA is one of the best-known suppliers of flat pack furniture. However, other sellers include Hem, Normann Copenhagen, and Habitat. You can always find some examples on other sites like eBay or try Googling 'Flat pack furniture near me'.
They should last for 10-15 years, if not longer, assuming they're well maintained.
On average, around £50 to £100 per unit of furniture
Yes, in some cases, it will be appropriate to reinforce the joints such as with 1x2s, 2x2s and glue. Screws can also help though it will depend on what the right approach is for the specific unit.
