Closed for Summer

Simple Assembly is closed for the summer and for the small matter of a mini-Simple Assembly baby coming along.

We’ll be back in autumn – and sure who wants to be shopping in summer?

Why you need Simple Assemble Me Hole?

This is why:

New Kitchen!

Here is a kitchen before we came by:

This is the same kitchen, but after we left:

Yes, We Can!

“Time for Change” and “Yes We Can!” Or is an Ikea revamp of the Oval
Office in the White House still too radical a change?

The Dresser, Two Dauthers and a Cat

Not everyone has the good fortune of two young daughters and a cat to help them with their furniture assembly. For all those less fortunate there is always Simple Assembly Me Hole!

Kitchen Inspirations (3)

Here at Simple Assembly Me Hole we are keen to help you create the ultimate kitchen for your home. We can obviously help in your installation needs. But perhaps we can also help inspire you with new ideas for that kitchen you always wanted…

This third one in the series – a Japanse kitchen design by Toyo Kitchen – with it’s coal-black splash that looks like dried lava makes for a smoking hot kitchen. Does this one inspire you?

Swedish Furniture Name Generator

What would you be called and what would you look like if they sold you at Ikea? Visit this fun but totally pointless tool to find out! Click here to play.

from: www.blogadilla.com

Kitchen Inspirations (2)

Here at Simple Assembly Me Hole we are keen to help you create the ultimate kitchen for your home. We can obviously help in your installation needs. But perhaps we can also help inspire you with new ideas for that kitchen you always wanted…

This second one in the series – a contemporary kitchen in Bakersfield, California – a round kitchen with a round island, designed by Troy Adams. If you order it, we’ll install it!

A (book)Case of Intimidation

For many of you ‘Georges’ out there assembling a flat pack is not unlike chopping down a tree and starting from scratch. The carpenters at Simple Assembly Me Hole however, are immune to such intimidation and will be glad to alleviate your fears.

Kitchen Inspirations

Here at Simple Assembly Me Hole we are keen to help you create the ultimate kitchen for your home. We can obviously help in your installation needs. But perhaps we can also help inspire you with new ideas for that kitchen you always wanted…

This first one in the series – a kitchen in a large southern home by the Tennessee River – might be a little luxurious for most tastes… but then you never know.

Jigsaw Tables

A great way to keep potential furniture buyers from facing frustration when assembling furniture is to make the assembly fun and part of the design concept. We came across these tables which come in (we assume) easy to assemble jigsaw pieces at fur-throws.com.

Nathan Baker

These photographs might look like the result of a frustrated weekend of furniture assembly. They are however, the artistic expression of Berlin based artist Nathan Baker. He creates sculptural forms using Ikea’s ready to assemble chair – model Stefan. You might be forgiven for thinking this is easier to do than actually put the Stefan together into a functional chair.

Assemble Instructions

So recognizable. So difficult not to laugh out loud as he (or is it his wife?) shares with the world an afternoon of furniture assembly. Had he lived in or around Dublin one of our carpenters could have saved him a great deal of bother… and robbed us from the delight at his struggle and frustration.

Death by Ikea

Simple assembly? Me hole!

It appears that you might not be the only one who has met with difficulty and frustration when trying to put together that new wardrobe or table. But don’t let it go to far. There are experts who take the death out of Ikea. And if it is death you seek, I imagine death by chocolate is a more preferable way to go.

Dodgy Scammers – This Is Not Us

Someone told me they were contacted by a dodgy Chinese company claiming to have worked for us.
They did not. We don’t deal with dodgy companies, preferring to use reputable ones.
If you get an email from a hosting or registration company claiming to have done work for us, they are LIARS.

Thanks to Sadhbh from Sky Interiors for bringing this to my attention.

DIY Disasters

If you’re feeling a little unsure about your prowess with a hammer, watch this, consider if it could be you, then book us in to save you from injury and strife!

We Will, We Will, Floor You….

….and you’ll be glad we did.

Our services are expanding as rapidly as my winter-midriff.

Simple Assembly now lays flooring, no snickering from the back please.  IKEA sells many laminate flooring systems (view range) which look rather cool in a clean contemporary sitting room. Turn on the jazz please.

If dark flooring or indeed hard bebop jazz isn’t to your taste, IKEA also does a range of laminate floor colours all with matching skirting boards. The skirting comes in white, so no need to paint it.  Pretty cool eh?

So you get your floor laid by our carpenters at incredible rates – no need for you to stoop to our level getting your hands dirty painting skirting boards.

As the rugby season is now in full swing, this leaves Saturday clear for a spot of couch camping in front of the Heineken Cup.

If you do get your flooring elsewhere we will of course put it down for you. We will also fit hardwood flooring if you prefer to invest in the timeless quality of  say, oak or cherry.

Give us a call to discuss what you want.

Personal Services

Thierry Henry is rather a creative chap on the football pitch. Little touches here and there and a predator’s instinct in front of goal.  Now, not all of us are as handy as Monsieur Henry or indeed as creative.  And it seems house prices are dropping like a French player in the box!

House prices are falling so many of us won’t be moving house anytime soon. So if you’re a little fed up with the space you’re living in, what can you do?

A remodel or makeover is the obvious answer.

The two most popular rooms to remodel are the kitchen and bathroom. These are also normally the most heavily used areas in a home. They are also the ones that will give you the best return on your investment.  A makeover may seem a little daunting. Especially if you have the same level of inspiration as an Owen Wilson movie.

Sometimes it pays to have help in the creativity department, so we are pleased to announce our new Interior Architect Consulting Service.

We work with Elaine Butler from Edge Design.

Edge Design combine a knowledge of architecture with interior design, and have plenty experience at spatially planning and interior finishing.  As one of the Founders of the Interiors Association, Elaine is passionate about her cafe and pretty well known in the industry.  This is what we can now offer to you:

1. Telephone meeting with you during which we’ll discuss  your project
2. Modelling of kitchen and wardrobes, bathrooms, etc. in the IKEA  home planner programme
3. We’ll email the images to you for comments
4. Email correspondence or telephone meeting to discuss amendments to the design
5. Design is amended as agreed and revised visuals are emailed to you for comments
6. Steps 4 & 5 are repeated as required
7. Final drawings are sent to you and a 3D model is uploaded to the Ikea website
8. Elaine will meet you in IKEA and be there to help you when you are in the store to make the purchase.

So not only will your makover be discussed, planned and drawn up for you, you will also have Elaine in the store with you to give you constant creative advice.  I don’t know about you, but it’d be a dream come true to have my own interior architect walking the store with me!  All this at our usual affordable prices.

Give us a call and we can get the ball rolling. Go on put a little Va Va Voom! in your life.

If You B&Q It, We Do It Too

We’ve been getting a few calls lately asking if we assemble other furniture apart from Ikea. The short answer is, YES!

There are a range of places that sell flatpack furniture, Argos, Woodies and even Lidil to name a few. In fact any shop that sells furniture will sell a range of items which come flatpack.

So no matter where you buy your furniture we can assemble it for you. So give us a call, no matter what the item is. Or where you got it from we’ll do it.

Remember Halloween?

I know it was just a few short days ago, but we know what’s next….

No don’t worry, I’m not going to mention the word. Although I’m sure you’re not immune to the point of sales and merchandising in the shops.

Shortbread and sherry is all well and good, but I think many of us would prefer something a little more permanent.

• Say a new bookcase for when you spend the tenner book token Auntie Kitty sends you every year since you where five!
• Or indeed a new kitchen in which to entertain the aforementioned dotty relative….sherry and shortbread being the order of the day.
• Prehaps you’re fed up with the halfbuilt ruin at the bottom of the garden, “Yes dear I know it was supposed to be a shed but….”
• Or when you settle down to Tubridy on Friday night and that broken spring in the sofa, makes it more turgid than Tubridy!

You know its the time of year when you have a perfect excuse to dump the old. Or, just to go out and get some new furniture.

And while you roast chestnuts on an open fire, we’ll put all your new stuff together, just leave out some biccies and a glass of milk for us……ahem!

Don’t Ya Wish Your Kitchen Was Hot Like Mine

Well, like Mrs M in Rathgar’s:

See how the drawer glides open:

Soft lighting to make glass sparkle of an evening!

Play The IKEA Game

We now include ‘basic Swedish’ in the languages that we speak. We are experts on the IKEA product catalogue – are you? Play the IKEA game and find out.

You’re given a list of IKEA product names, and you must guess what the product is. Ten products are picked from the database, so every game is different!

Play IKEA Game

Baby Furniture Assembly

We do baby furniture too. If you thought assembling regular furniture was hard, try it with pieces that are teeny tiny! This soon to be first time father got us out to assemble new baby furniture because he didn’t want to risk it being wobbly or in any way unstable or unsafe.

We came. We did the job. And now all they have to do is choose the teddy!

Don’t Mess With IKEA

Donnycarney man John Haugh set up a business with the IKEA name in it – and very quickly the Swedish ones have come down hard against him. He’s now up in court for infringing the IKEA trademark.

One of the names we’d considered was a play on the IKEA name – IE KEA. But we rejected that because:

1. we might get sued by IKEA
2. it’s a crap name

I feel a wee bit sorry for Haugh.  He said in court that because the Companies Registration Office had passed his name, he thought that he was OK.  Hmm, those people in the CRO causing trouble again.  The case continues.

More on the case here.

You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties

I am a bit nosey so I like to check out people’s kitchens. There are some great examples out there, whether you like an old shaker style or formica-tastic floats your boat.

If you’re into something a bit funkier, IKEA offers a pick’n'mix approach.  So it should be easy to find shapes, sizes and colours to your taste. You can start searching for your dream kitchen here.

Then when you decide on your dream kitchen – give us a call.  We will ask you some quick questions about what you need  and then we’ll send you a quote so tasty you could call it  Nigella Lawson!

We like to discuss any extra tweaks and hacks you would like up front.  Do you want us to remove your old kitchen?  Is there additional plumbing required? etc.  We have found that this saves both your time and ours, and there are no nasty suprises when it comes to payment.

Our team is made up of experienced carpenters, so you won’t need to worry about the quality and finish when Simple Assembly is installing your kitchen.

Bunkbed Assembly Dublin

We’ve been doing quite a bit of children’s furniture assembly lately.  These bunkbeds were assembled in South Dublin for a granny who loves having her grandkids over to stay.  Space conscious bunkbeds assembly, these will fit into a box room.  Slightly tricky on the assembly – you’ve got to make sure you’ve got them nice and solid, you don’t want a wobbly bunkbed!  Our guy has done a nice job don’t you think?

For Men Only

It’s funny how.. NAMA is on our side.  It’s funny how you can’t put a fruit pastille in your mouth without chewing.  And it’s funny how men are the ‘DIY kings’.
Well not quite.  While I do know which bit of the powerdrill goes in the socket, I have to admit to hanging the odd slanty shelf – or using a folded up page of “Mens Health” under a leg of the kitchen table so dinner can be eaten in an orderly fashion and not like  the last evening aboard the good ship Titanic.

We have been getting a number of calls from men. Yes I know, men do actually ask for help, although i have my theory that it was a fed-up women passenger who invented GPS.

Now whilst their tooled-up brethren may frown into their SKIL mugs, there is nothing wrong with getting a professional assembler to do a job.  Egos are salved.  And Saturday can go back to its rightful place as sport watching day.

Or  as in the case of a customer recently who has three men in the house and a half-assembled wardrobe sitting on the long finger awaiting her fabulous collection of gunas and accompanying shoes – domestic harmony was restored.

So any men with a handful of thumbs feel free to give us a call.  We are very discreet and won’t publish your failings here.   And to our women readers satisfaction is guaranteed!

We’re Up For An Award

In the Irish Web Awards no less! These are the only awards in Ireland that are worth it. Why? Because the awards are given out based on expert and peer review. Not based on the size of the table you are buying at the ceremony (Golden Spiders). Nor is it based on the size of your email list (”Please vote for me” a la Net Visionary’s). No, the Irish Web Awards are most definitely where it’s at!

We are up for two awards:

• Best new site
• Most useful site

Now it’s only the long list of nominees at this stage.  But keep your eyes on the Irish Web Awards website to see how we progress!

Rate Us

We do everything we can to deliver a quality service.  And we think we do a pretty good job.  But what do you really think?

Please tell us what you think by voting below.  And no, your name and email address is not collected, so it’s entirely anonymous!  If you do want to add a comment, just click on the little number above and feel free to have your say.

We Win On Pricing…

And on service.  Did you know all of our assemblers are carpenters? Not just handymen.  That means you can be sure your flatpack furniture assembly will be done professionally.

I saw an ad for flatpack furniture assembly being done for €7.  How can that be?   It’s not!  Check out the pricing below.  As you can see, we offer better pricing on pretty much all items. Notice how the prices below look small at a glance, eg. €7 – but they are actually prices for the components of each item!

At Simple Assembly Me Hole, we don’t penalise you for choosing a 4 drawer chest of drawers.
So what are you waiting for? Book in your flatpack furniture assembly with us today.

Update: here’s another one who’s charging €35 for a call out, then an additional 20% of the price of your furniture on top of things.  How can he get away with that?  It’s extremely expensive.

We charge €30 per item. All up.

Monday Morning Pattern

We’re seeing a bit of a pattern emerge on Mondays.  There are always more orders on a Monday.  And they tend to be for projects that are incomplete!  We call these the “I started and I can’t finish” ones. And we assign these quickly.  Because we know how it feels when you take out those instructions all bright and full of good intentions… the hours pass and you reach a point where you have to give up.  Loved ones give counsel.  Or advice on how they’d do it.  What’s worse?

Don’t worry.  If you have a “I started and I can’t finish” project, know that we will be round to finish it in a jiffy.  And we won’t rub it in.

That’s a promise!

Kitchen Table & Chairs

Non-Rickety Bookcase

Do you have someone in your life who believes they’re well able for IKEA assembly jobs… and yet tables always end up a little bit wobbly, wardrobes a bit rickety, shelves a bit slopey?

That’s why we’re here.  We help you get the best out of your IKEA furniture.  Non-rickety assembly guaranteed!

IKEA’s Stock Not As It Should Be

We’re seeing a lot of customers being disappointed when they reach IKEA and find out that their desired item is not in stock.

Disappointment is one way of putting it.  Distressed is another – if you’ve arranged for a babysitter, booked in delivery, and braved the rain.  I can only say that you have our sympathies.  And, once you let us know that you’re not going to be fulfilling your order, we can postpone everything until IKEA has your stock.

It seems that the IKEA online system and phone systems are not matching the reality of the system.

A case in point: a customer today viewed 18 items in stock online.  She telephoned to confirm that and was told 5 items were in stock.  When she went to the store, she was told that they were out of stock of that particular item for the past few days.

Shocking re. stocking.

I’ve not been able to come up with a solution yet.  For now, just know that once you inform us in time, we can postpone your order until another day.

Wardrobe Assembly

One of the most popular furniture assembly jobs of all is wardrobes.  And why  not?  Who wants to face into constructing such a large item of furniture?

The good news is that we do.  And we’re pretty great at it.

But there’s something I need to clarify.   It’s in relation to what is a wardrobe and what is a series of pieces that make up a wardrobe.

These are wardrobes. They have 4 sides, and 2 doors:

This is a wardrobe system. Swankier than your bog standard traditional wardrobe, but oh such a stylish addition to any room.  See how this one has a chest of drawers inside it?  And interesting sliding doors and shelving too:

The wardrobe above is from IKEA. We recently assembled this for a happy customer. But because it is made up of 5 separately assembled pieces,  we charged for 5 items and not 1.  The customer understood and was happy with that.

So when you’re placing your order for a wardrobe assembly, please consider your wardrobe’s component parts. If it’s a super swanky 5 piece number, please put it down as such. That way there’ll be no embarrassment on anyone’s part when it comes to the job.

Make Your IKEA Gear Look Its Best

Last night I went up to IKEA for a proper shop as a real live customer. I didn’t ‘not enjoy’ the experience, but I didn’t spend much either. I had a list of things I needed – a kitchen table and chairs, a sofa bed, and some random other small stuff. All I came home with was a salad bowl!

Today I met with Sadhbh Fitzgibbon, Interior Designer Dublin and she had remarkable insights that you can use to really get the most out of your IKEA buy.

• Make your sofa look its best by steaming or ironing the covers before you put them on.  If you put them on straight out of the box, they look shabby already – even before use.
• Same applies to curtains and cushion covers.  Steaming or ironing will ensure that even the cheapest drapes hang well and add a touch of class to your room.
• Make sure you buy rubber matting for under rugs to avoid slippage.  You can pick this up for €3.99
• Wear your rug the wrong way around for the first 24 hours.  This smoothes out all corners to avoid unwanted tripping!

We’ll have more from Sadhbh in the coming weeks.  If you would like to find out more about how you can use IKEA wisely to customise your home, get in touch with Sky Interiors.

Emerging Trends

Now that we’re a whole month in operation, some trends are emerging:

• Busiest day: Mondays. Lots of you start projects over the weekend and can’t finish them.  So we’ve had a fair few dining room suites, bedroom suites, and children’s bedrooms that needed completion.
• Most popular item: Wardrobes. IKEA must be selling a stack of them.  We are certainly assembling a load of them.  Double wardrobes with slidey drawers are the most popular.
• Most relieved: when we come and erect your shelves.  IKEA are great at giving you the shelving, but they don’t really go into detail about how you can get them on the wall!

Wardrobe & Double Bed

Here’s how it works.  You go up to IKEA and buy up big.  Then you wisely decide that life has much more to offer than the opportunity to spend half a day trying to get your head around assembly instructions!  So you visit us, place your order, and next day we have someone out with you to assemble your new furniture.   We do it quickly.  And we use all the bits – so you know it’s a good job with no worrying bits left over!

Here’s a wardrobe and double bed that are settling in nicely to their new home:

Design Your Own Room Tool

Design your own space.  Drag & drop furniture.  Change background, colour, accessories.
Well cool: Space Maker

How Delivery Works

We’ve streamlined our process.  Now it works even smoother, you get to browse IKEA for as long as you like..but when it all gets a bit too much – we are only 30 minutes away!

Here’s how to order IKEA furniture delivery with us:

• Order delivery with us – tell us when you’re planning to go to IKEA
• We will confirm your order and give you a mobile number that you can reach us on.
• When you are 45 minutes away from being done at IKEA, call or text us on the number.
• Usually it takes about 45 minutes to get through checkout and pick up your stuff.  So it’s a good idea to text us when you’re hitting the queues.
• Pick up your stuff, take the lift to the car park.  We’ll be waiting for you, will pack up your stuff and whizz it away to your home.

Please note your driver will wait for up to 15 minutes after the time you’ve told him to be there.  After that, he’s got to go!