Iâve never really understood the hatred for putting together IKEA furniture. Assembling flat-pack furniture is not unlike adult Legoâand like Lego, IKEA does what it does better than pretty much anyone else. With that said, some of its items are clearly easier to assemble than othersâand if youâre eyeing up a purchase from Swedenâs finest, you might find yourself wondering what youâre letting yourself in for. If so, thereâs a new site that could help: itâs called the IKEA Complexity Index, and it catalogues 21,290 separate IKEA products, assigning each a numerical score that aims to measure how difficult the product is to put together.

Has some madman actually assembled every single piece of furniture that IKEA sells? The answerâas far as I can tellâis âno.â Instead, the score is based on a pretty simple formula: you take the number of steps in the manual, multiply it by the number of individual parts, and thatâs your complexity.

So my first thought here is that this formula could probably do with some tweaking. As an example, the most iconic item of IKEA furniture, the basic BILLY bookshelf (item 105.220.37), has 48 separate parts and requires 13 steps to assemble, yielding a complexity rating of 624. Adding a foldable table, howeverâwhich is a thing you can do, apparentlyâsends the complexity rating skyrocketing: the BILLY bookcase and foldable table (item 005.797.55, and boy it feels wrong typing those numbers instead of scribbling them down with a comically small pencil) has complexity rating of 6,586.

If we look at the manual, though, we find that the folding table is really just a funny little miniature BILLY bookcase that wheels inside the larger, more familiar unit. The table section is attached with a hinge to the smaller bookcase. Â When you wheel the little case out, the table is dragged into a horizontal position; when you wheel it back, the table slides down a curved rail to nestle neatly in a vertical position between the two cases.

Itâs a neat design, and sure, itâs doubtless more involved to put together than the basic BILLYâbut is it ten times harder? Surely not? (And if thatâs not what the number is saying, then what is it saying?) But constructive criticism of the algorithm aside, youâre probably wondering: what is the hardest piece of IKEA furniture to assemble?

Iâm glad you asked. To start with, we should note that the site makes a distinction between pieces with a single manual and those with multiple manuals. This is an important distinction, because things get muddied once you start adding in what IKEA calls âsystemsâ, i.e. modular designs that allow you to spec out an entire kitchen/bedroom/etc. The most difficult-to-assemble of these is the PAX wardrobe systemâand weirdly, the ones that lack doors rate higher than the ones that have them.

But thatâs not really answering the question of what the hardest single item to assemble might be. So letâs look at the most challenging single-manual object, which is the HEMNES dresser (item 305.761.90.) This monster certainly looks like a good afternoonâs work; it has eight separate drawers, stands 63â high when fully assembled, and comes in three separate packagesâ the heaviest of these weighs over 60 lb, with the other two weighing in at just over 30 lb each. Putting it together requires 74 steps and involves 290 separate parts, yielding a complexity rating of 21,460.

It seems that the weight is also to blame for the part of the assembly that people find most confusing, which is a tip prevention system that prevents more than one drawer opening at once. Beyond that pitfall, though, the HEMNES isnât really that different to a BILLY; itâs held together with dowels, bolts with hex interfaces, and those funny little locking nut things of which Iâve never known the name. (Until now, at least: theyâre called cam lock nuts.) Thereâs just a lot more of them.

Time-consuming and hard arenât the same thing, though. Happily, though, the IKEA Complexity Index isnât precious about its own system; it also lets you sort the catalogue by the reviews on IKEAâs website. Again, this is an imperfect metricâpeople online tend to complain about things they didnât like, but rarely take the time to praise something they didâbut in this respect, IKEA is better than, say Amazon, because it allows people to rate ease of assembly separately to their overall impressions of the product. Itâs these ease-of-assembly ratings the site uses, and by that metric, the most difficult IKEA product to put together is⦠the STOCKHOLM pendant lamp (item 705.863.14).

Personally, any sort of ceiling lighting goes straight into the âthings for a professionalâ categoryâsomeone once told me that the two things never to try to DIY are plumbing and power, and itâs good advice. But even so, this lamp does not look like anyoneâs idea of a good time. It features 36 glass tubes, all of which hang from two central brass rings, and all of which have to be installed in a specific order to maintain the lampâs weight distribution. The fact that this has an average assembly score of 3.1 out of 5âa full 10% lower than the next lowest-scoring item, which comes in at 3.6/5âprobably tells you all you need to know.

So whatâs its complexity rating? Well, since you asked, itâsâwait, how is it 72? It seems that the site considers it to only have four separate parts, which feels wrong? Even if we rectify this error and if we count the 36 tubes, two brass rings, central light fitting and ceiling fixture as separate partsâwhich, yâknow, they areâthe rating still only comes in at 18 x 41 = 738. Thatâs barely more than a single BILLY, and I know which Iâd volunteer to assemble.

But ultimately, whatever metric you choose, and whichever item from the catalogue you end up being tasked with assembling, you can console yourself with the fact that if you’re sitting on the living room floor, surrounded by pieces of particle board and trying to convince the cat not to attack one of several bags of apparently identical screws, you’re not in the true heart of darkness: the IKEA store itself. You might be short a dowel or two, but you’re not watching hollow-eyed couples trudge slowly around the blue-and-yellow gauntlet of despair, or asking what’s really in those meatballs, or trying to understand why half of the BORKRÃVEN laundry hamper is in Aisle 4 while the other half is on the top shelf of Aisle 43983924. That has to be worth something, right?