KITTENHOEFFER magazine stand.

[reddragdiva]

The KITTENHOEFFER magazine stand by IKEA is one of the finest, clearest and most popular design examples of self-assembly furniture ever devised. Costs are saved by the assembly not being performed in the factory, and by greatly reduced volumes for shipping and storage by the distributor and retailer. It comes in flat-packs, with instructions that are clear and diagrammatical. You do have to get through IKEA without FUCKING KILLING EACH OTHER AND EVERYONE AROUND YOU, and WHAT ON EARTH WERE YOU THINKING GOING TO IKEA ON A WEEKEND AFTERNOON, but that's a small price to pay for Scandinavian design excellence. Ingvar Kamprad was personally responsible for this one, you know.

Assembling KITTENHOEFFER

Like all IKEA products, KITTENHOEFFER comes with all required parts and tools and simple, diagrammatical, easy-to-read instructions.

Page 1: Heading KITTENHOEFFER. Line diagram of your magazine stand. You can just imagine it there in the corner of your living space.

Page 2: Note the smiling Swedish cartoon man. If anything goes wrong, he can call IKEA! And the large blue and yellow Tardis-like box will materialise in his living room. And life will be European, functional, socialist and stylish.

Page 3: Get out a seventeenth Allen key to add to your collection. Count the screws, bolts, washers and weird threaded rod things. Now put the sides in the middle of the floor and the base on top so you can screw it in. Whoops, they fell over! Your loved one stifles a snigger and goes into the other room.

Page 4: Put the weird threaded rod things through the sides. No, push harder ... Fuck. Oh, good — it isn't broken, just bent a bit. Bend it back. Yes, that's got it. Hardly noticeable.

Page 5: This bit doesn't seem to fit ... You have one of the sides on backwards. Go back to page 3 and try again. Back yet? Good. This may be bad, but it's not as bad as that one you got from Argos which said "some assembly required" and it turned out you needed a bloody power drill. Is it, now. This is much less worse. Keep telling yourself that.

Page 6: Now put the last two screws in from underneath where the magazine stand is on the floor. Whoops, that bit of the instructions is physically impossible, isn't it! Never mind. Make a mental note that you actually needed to do this around page 4. Now you can either (a) disassemble the entire damn thing back to page 4 or (b) attempt to lift it off the ground without getting a hernia. Your call.

Page 7: Attach cover to top, put caps in ends of frame. Assembled magazine stand. Slightly chipped veneer around the screw holes. You call in your loved one to show your wonderful handiwork. Your loved one hands you a cup of tea and points out the two surplus screws left over at the end. Trying to work out where they should go, you lean on the magazine stand and it collapses. Go back to page 3.

Page 8: A blank white void, similar to your mind after the above process. Also reminiscent of your white-hot terror at the prospect of ever setting foot in IKEA again. You'll be back next weekend.

See also

• Psychosis
• Bloodthirsty rage
• Politeness
• Certainty
• Alcoholism

© David Gerard, available under Creative Commons by-nc-sa 2.0 or by arrangement. Originally written for Uncyclopedia, but I couldn't not share it with you.

Comments

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

EdwardS and i will assemble your furniture for a small fee. :P i've never yet had any trouble building ikea furniture.

[vatine]

There's one subsepcies of IKEA-at-work desk that is *very' annoying to assemble. There's, basically, two choices, either be three people, two of whom are holding the desk surface up and the third assembles things underneath -or- assemble it legs-up and turn it around later. THis, obviously, requires a minimum of three people, because steel and wood are heavy items. We were four, with 6 desks to assemble and obstructing the reception area at work while working. THis was, to say the least, mutually incompatible priorities (namely, "be safe" and "clear things off yesterminute").

[reddragdiva]

That will be the GALANT that I'm writing this on.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

Is that the followup to the... er... damn. It has tubular legs and is modular. I've got one in my office and it's sort of L shaped with a round end and a return desk. They stopped making it under that name and made something that looks similar. Started with an E I think.

[reddragdiva]

Tubular legs, that's the one.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

I remembered - the desk I have in the office is called "EFFECTIV".

I was annoyed because I wanted the small square return desk for my printer and they cancelled the line.

[vatine]

Big thing, shaped roughly like a "t" without the cross-bar? Or, I guess, a "j". These were *big* suckers.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

I have the JERKER desk of doom - pics here - http://www.dmc12.demon.co.uk/music/ (there is, worryingly, a fansite for the JERKER desk). It's still being expanded and will be getting extra height. I have no idea how much it weighs and I'm sure the floorboards are bending under the weight ;)

Our most recent challenge was a brown desk with keyboard drawer (along with other stuff, the footstools take me 10 minutes - ambidextrous useage of allen keys), quite complicated. It did need two people because of the size of the room but generally if I'm making IKEA furniture, it's best if people just get the hell out of the way because I'm prone to picking up and spinning large wooden components for correct fit.

I love IKEA furniture. I wish they'd have a challenge, where they would give you furniture sans instructions, with one picture showing how it should look when finished. You have to make it correctly and quickly. I think Siani & I would be total demons at it.

[redcountess]

My desk is a JERKER - we thought it was the only one Ikea sell that would support a 21" Sun monitor, but it turned out that the GALANT that David has does as well.

[reddragdiva]

The JERKER is actually not too bad to assemble. Just bloody heavy.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I find it easiest to do IKEA desks by lying it on its side and pivoting it on vertices when I need to get at the side which is serving as the bottom. That didn't make sense but I could draw a picture and it would.

I built an MFI cabin bed on my own when I was seven. It seemed at the time like a better idea than learning to play netball and I don't regret it one bit.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

I defy anyone to reliably assemble an Ikea futon without having to decapitate at least one of the plastic pegs after it absolutely refuses to sink any further. (Futon #1: one decapitated peg. Futon #2: three or four, plus two holes unpegged because the bastarding timber was misdrilled.)

[edwards.livejournal.com]

I am sure I've done this. Of course it depends on the futon. Siani and I assembled a red sofabed thing recently, and I assembled a wooden one a while ago.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

This is the 140x110x80 version of the GRANKULLA futon. It has 12 pine slats (5-4-3 configuration), and 64 plastic pegs to secure them to the bars. Driving the pegs takes a hammer and a considerable amount of time and effort. I'd have far rather had to drive 64 self-tapping screws.
As I say, in one case in the second futon, the centre pair of pegs on one of the slats was undrivable, because I could not get that pair of holes lined up with the receiving holes.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

I've seen those, though the one I had wasn't pegged, it was screwed. Never had that problem with anything yet at least...

[vatine]

"Your IKEA-shopping-experience-and-following-assembly scored 17 out of 19 possible. You completed all subtasks, but re-did steps 17 and 782 in the instructions sequence. Play again (y/N)?"

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

Considering the effort that goes into assembling even the most basic Ikea items, I'd rather carve them myself straight from the tree.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

Fantastic - thankyou :)

[lucybond.livejournal.com]

You don't have a power drill? But... but... you have a penis, right?

I got 2 power drills...

[baljemmett.livejournal.com]

I've always found a penis to be a rather poor substitute for a power drill; there's a joke about hammer action there somewhere, I'm sure.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

You just need to learn how to twist it right...

[edwards.livejournal.com]

I have the most remarkable, and seemingly forgotten, tool. It's long, springy and incredibly practical, the more force you use, the better it is.



I am of course referring to a purely mechanical automatic screwdriver, similar to that seen in "Brazil". It works by pushing on it and a series of spirals, and it's brilliant for assembling furniture. However, they don't seem to be available in shops anymore, unless via specialised sources...

[edwards.livejournal.com]

The more things change, the more they stay the same - s/IKEA/Habitat/MFI...

I don't get the IKEA furniture problem. I assemble it in no time. However, the countless Allen keys...

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

I now have more panel pins than God just from buying a wardrobe and chest of drawers.
(I'm quite pleased about assembling all my Ikea furniture unassisted. The wardrobe in particular, as it weighs nearly two-thirds as much as I do.)

[reddragdiva]

Hence the bit about Argos. IKEA is notably less worse than all competitors.

[secretlondon.livejournal.com]

Can I just have a European, functional, socialist and stylish life - sod the furniture. ta.

[vatine]

Ve vill assimilate you!

[reddragdiva]

I'm not sure they're in stock. You should go out to Fucking Lakeside to check. Or, perhaps not.

[vatine]

Of course they are. They're on shelf 702B in the self-pick warehouse, next to Life, Boyfriend and Girlfriend (all assemble-yourself of course). It's a bit like Canadian Tyres.

[lyzbeth.livejournal.com]

Tee hee hee!

I liked that. Thankyou for brightening my day by reminding me what I'm not trying to do at the moment :)

(But I assembled two flat-packed bookshelves the other night... with the help of Cordless Drill! Yay!)

Also...

[jauncourt.livejournal.com]

Have you noticed exactly how much the smiling Swedish cartoon man in the "don't do THIS" drawings appears to be having sex with the furniture during assembly? and I did. We also built the FLARKE and discovered why the name sounds so much like a swearword made up for TV.

Re: Also...

[reddragdiva]

Yes, every time we got an IKEA manual ;-) I'm now desperately seeking a scanner so I can make up some images for the Uncyclopedia article.