New construction system under test – these are the challenges lurking

The popular “Pax”-Cabinet from Ikea has been given a new assembly system. Our editor Laura Helbig tested it – and was frustrated in some places.

Assembling furniture requires a certain amount of skill and, ideally, a little experience. I actually have the experience – I have assembled countless Ikea pieces of furniture on my own, even once an entire kitchen. But when assembling the “Pax” I'm a little desperate with the new plug-in system (read more about it here).

Ikea promises that the new assembly system will not only make assembling the furniture much quicker, but also less complicated – so simple that you can “Pax”-body on my own. After my attempt to build the basic structure of the wardrobe on my own, I am skeptical about the latter.

Because the “Pax” is a massive and heavy cupboard. I had problems with the first step, setting up the connected back and side walls. When I unfolded the walls, the body wobbled back and forth quite a bit. In the video above you can see how hard I struggled.

Once the basic structure is in place, the next step – putting the panels together and attaching them – is actually pretty easy. To do this, however, you have to put the elements in the right way round. Unfortunately, I didn't do that in one place with the feet, which meant that the base plate didn't fit in the end.

But the biggest challenge was still to come: the ceiling panel. Since the new “Pax” If you no longer have to put it upright but lying down, you have to somehow lift the heavy plate onto the cabinet and insert it into the side walls. This was a difficult task for me to do alone.

Keeping the part somewhat straight, inserting it into the side walls and standing on a ladder at the same time turned out to be a dangerous balancing act. The cabinet wobbled back and forth the whole time and I was afraid that the heavy plate would fall on my head. Even though the aim of our test was actually for me to assemble the cabinet completely by myself, a colleague eventually had to step in and help me.