Flat pack or made to fit? A 170 year old argument, settled for your home

The quick way to decide

Ask three questions about each piece. Is the space standard, or is there a column, a slope or a high ceiling to deal with? Will you be living here in five years? Will this piece come with you when you move?

Standard space, short stay, coming with you: flat pack. Awkward space, long stay, staying with the house: built in. Mixed answers usually mean a mix of both, which is fine. Below are the cases where each one wins, then the history behind the choice.

When flat pack is the right call

Flat pack is often the right answer, even from a maker's point of view. It works best here:

When a built in wardrobe pays for itself

Fitted pieces earn their price where a standard box wastes space or looks awkward:

1859: the first chair shipped in parts

Thonet's Chair No. 14 went out into the world in pieces. The chairs travelled in compact crates about a metre square, 36 to a crate, and were assembled when they arrived.

They were put together by the shop or distributor that received them, not by the café owner who bought them. A century later that job would land with the buyer.

Source: V&A: Chair, model no. 14, Thonet Brothers

Round two: William Morris asks for beauty

In England, William Morris spent years lecturing people on how to furnish a home. In Birmingham on 19 February 1880 he gave the advice people still print on tea towels: have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

Morris wanted good things for everyone. But careful handwork takes time, and time is the expensive part. For the next century and more, the deal looked fixed: personal and beautiful, or cheap and the same for everyone.

Source: Wikiquote: William Morris, The Beauty of Life (1880)

Round three: a table in a small box

IKEA's LÖVET coffee table appeared in the 1956 catalogue. It packed into a small flatpack, described at the time as individually packed in wood wool and cardboard with string.

It gets the credit for starting flat pack, but IKEA's own museum points out it was not even their first. The DELFI, KÖKSA and RIGA tables, which you assembled yourself, were in the 1953 catalogue.

Source: IKEA Museum: LÖVET coffee table

Round four: you become the fitter

The first IKEA store opened in Älmhult, Sweden, on 28 October 1958, and you could take some furniture home the same day in flat packs. Self assembly was already five years old. What the store added was the drive home: you collected the box, carried it and built it, and every job you took on was one IKEA did not have to pay for.

Source: IKEA Museum: The first IKEA store

The costs nobody puts on the label

Flat pack has extras of its own: delivery, an afternoon on the floor with the instructions (or someone you pay to do it), fixing tall units to the wall so they cannot tip, and fillers to hide the gaps at the sides and top.

Built in has its own: someone has to measure, draw and price a piece that has never existed, and you wait while it is made. That design work is the real reason custom furniture costs more, and it is the part that is finally getting faster.

Can you mix flat pack and built in furniture?

Most good homes do both. A built in wall unit that turns a messy wall into calm storage, next to a flat pack sofa you love. A made to fit wardrobe in the alcove and a vintage chest by the bed.

Spend on the pieces that are hard to move and hard to get right, and save on the rest.

What has changed since Morris

The old trade off was fit against price. Machines handle the cutting now. The expensive part of fitted furniture is designing, drawing and pricing something unique, and software makes that much faster. That is the part we work on.

A photo from the doorway and rough sizes are enough to start. Tell us about your wall or wardrobe and we will draw it box by box, price every part on its own line and fix the price after we measure. Want to know what good furniture looks like inside? Read the 32 mm rule hiding inside your cabinets.