Goodbye Allen keys and arguments, IKEA is rolling out click-together furniture

IKEA: a place of war.

You traipse around the store, trapped by its maze-like one-way system and, before you know it, you’re desperately searching around the warehouse for the three different packets of wood that make up your wardrobe, while you’ve inexplicably bought a tool set, a full dinner plate range and three large plants. And then you find out you can’t fit it all in your car. All the while, you know that the pain won’t even stop there, as you await the inevitable argument you’ll have with your significant other about which screws go into which bit and which way up that panel is supposed to go, assembling it at home guided only by what seems to be a vague suggestion of an instruction leaflet that makes far less sense than its Lego equivalent.

However, help is finally at hand. Well, for the last bit at least.

IKEA has been working on a new range of click-together furniture, and is finally ready to roll it out.

Yes, you read that right – no screws, bolts, tools or glue required – it simply clicks together.

The key component is called a wedge dowel, a new type of joint, which can be inserted and removed without the need for any tools or fastenings, and can be removed and re-fitted without weakening the furniture; a feature IKEA has identified as crucial, given the way that many people need to regularly move house, particularly when renting. Gone are the days of your table getting ever more rickety with every change of landlord, from one bastard to the next.

Naturally, of course, the removal of extra, now redundant fittings will benefit the environment too.

IKEA's range and supply manager Jesper Brodin told Dezeen: "IKEA furniture typically contains quite a lot of fittings… So we thought, what happens if we try to take them out totally? We are now into the implementation phase of making it possible for you to click your furniture together.”

He added: "People move a lot more now. There are more divorces. So if you get kicked out [of your house] in the morning you can reassemble your table in the afternoon.”

They tested the concept of the wedge dowel in their Regissör storage products and Stockholm cabinets in 2014 and are now rolling the system out across their entire furniture range. "I actually put together a table which used to take me 24 minutes to assemble but took me three minutes to click together," said Brodin, rather excitingly.

The first product to get the treatment is the Lisabo table, and they’ve released this surprisingly interesting (this is furniture, after all) video explaining how it came about.

See, quite enjoyable wasn’t it?

(Images: IKEA)

(h/t Dezeen)