![Ikea Frustration (27879380013)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Ikea_Frustration_%2827879380013%29.jpg)
Ready-to-assemble furniture (RTA), also known as knock-down furniture (KD), flat pack furniture, or kit furniture, is a form of furniture that requires customer assembly. The separate components are packed for sale in cartons which also contain assembly instructions and sometimes hardware. The furniture is generally simple to assemble with basic tools such as
screwdriver
A screwdriver is a tool, manual or powered, used for turning screws. A typical simple screwdriver has a handle and a shaft, ending in a tip the user puts into the screw head before turning the handle. This form of the screwdriver has been repla ...
s, which are also sometimes included. Ready-to-assemble furniture is popular with consumers who wish to save money by assembling the product themselves.
Producers and merchants benefit from selling ready-to-assemble furniture because furniture is bulky once assembled, and thus more expensive to store and to deliver. Since the assembly work is done by the consumer instead of by the manufacturer, its price can be lower. A furniture assembly service industry has developed, making it easy for consumers to employ someone knowledgeable to assemble their furniture for them.
Produced mainly from
chipboard or
medium density fibreboard
Medium-density fibreboard (MDF) is an engineered wood product made by breaking down hardwood or softwood residuals into wood fibres, often in a defibrator, combining it with wax and a resin binder, and forming it into panels by applying high temp ...
(MDF), the cost of producing this type of furniture is cheaper than using solid wood. The low grade timber is coated with a polymer laminate to replicate various types of wood, allowing a high quality looking finished product.
History
Ready-to-assemble furniture has roots that extend back a long way, as cabinetmakers have been making furniture that is easy to disassemble for transport for centuries. The ''New American Cyclopaedia of 1859'' listed the assembly of furniture as an "American invention" that emphasized ease of transport, but this claim is rather vague. A better claim to the earliest RTA furniture is the
Thonet No. 14 bentwood chair, which was specifically made to be easily disassembled to save space during transportation. It was first produced in 1859. Slightly later there is an American patent of 1878 that defines some prefabricated furniture as follows: "The invention refers to a class of furniture in kit to be packaged and transported in pieces and assembled by specialized and unqualified people."
An early attempt at a business selling RTA furniture was set up by designer
Louise Brigham
Louise Brigham (January 1, 1875 – March 30, 1956) was an American early-20th-century designer and teacher. She was a pioneering champion of the use of recycled materials in furniture design. A system she invented for building furniture out of pa ...
and two partners during World War I. By 1915, Home Art Masters was offering RTA furniture kits at moderate prices through a mail-order catalog. The buyer received a set of parts that the company stated could be “quickly put together and finished. Everything including instructions, furnished. A boy or girl can set it up.”
Home Art Masters was short-lived and it is uncertain how many of their RTA furniture kits were ever sold.
The next experiments in running an RTA business stem from the 1940s and 1950s. In the late 1940s, the Australian designer
Frederick Charles Ward
Frederick Charles Ward (1900–1990) was a furniture and interior designer in Australia. Ward worked with native wood in his long career. His designs were installed in the creation of the Australian National University campus, in his capacity ...
founded a mail-order RTA furniture business because he was disturbed by how little affordable furniture there was for people of modest means. In 1953, the Ohio cabinetmaker
Erie J. Sauder received the first U.S. patent for RTA furniture for a table that could be assembled without either hardware or glue; he called it "snap-together" furniture.
In the Scandinavian countries, the furniture kit may have been independently invented by Swedish technician
Gillis Lundgren Gillis Lundgren (26 August 1929 – 25 February 2016) was a Swedish furniture designer and the fourth employee of IKEA. He designed the Billy bookcase
Billy (stylised as BILLY) is a bookcase sold by the Swedish furniture company IKEA. It was deve ...
, who had the idea when trying to transport a table in his car. According to reports, he had to saw off the table's legs so he could put it inside the car and bring it home. He talked about the idea with his boss at
IKEA
IKEA (; ) is a Dutch multinational conglomerate based in the Netherlands that designs and sells , kitchen appliances, decoration, home accessories, and various other goods and home services. Started in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, IKEA has been t ...
, and IKEA started selling flat-pack furniture in 1956.
Uses
Ready-to-assemble furniture can be purchased for a number of purposes:
* Living room furniture
* Office furniture
*
Bookcases
* Tables
* Beds
* Lounge-ware
* Outdoor furniture
* Swingsets
* Patio sets
*
Kitchen cabinet
Kitchen cabinets are the built-in furniture installed in many kitchens for storage of food, cooking equipment, and often Silver (household), silverware and Dishware, dishes for table service. Home appliance, Appliances such as refrigerators, dish ...
s
* CD/DVD storage racks
* Wardrobes/closets
* Desks
See also
*
Campaign furniture
Campaign furniture is a type of furniture which is made for travel. Historically, much of it was made for military campaigns.
Description
Any furniture specifically made to break down or fold for ease of travel can be described as campaign furni ...
*
Knock-down kit
A knock-down kit (also knockdown kit, knocked-down kit, or simply knockdown or KD) is a collection of parts required to assemble a product. The parts are typically manufactured in one country or region, then exported to another country or region ...
References
{{reflist, 2
DIY culture
Furniture
Flatpack furniture