A recent post on here was written to help you estimate how long a job will take and therefore how much it will cost. Naturally, we’ll always try to give you the most accurate quote we can, and if we say the price is guaranteed, then that’s exactly what we mean.

Some items take longer than you might expect, especially compared with equivalent pieces in more simple or basic ranges, and in IKEA’s vast catalogue, their Hemnes items are a good example of this.

The simple way to estimate our working time still stands – roughly 30 minutes or so per box delivered – but Hemnes furniture often comes in two or three boxes rather than one or two. That’s because there are usually lots of struts and stretchers (horizontal bars) to attach and sometimes end panels need assembling, too. Usually, this means that drawer runners will also need attaching, whereas a simpler cabinet might have these already screwed on.

Packing all the pieces safely for transport means you end up with more boxes than you might expect, but that’s a good guide to the time required to build it.

The eight-drawer Hemnes chest that I give as an example in the recent article is a very good example of this. I’ve done a few of these now, and they take me about ninety minutes. You might allow an hour per box if you build it yourself, or about three hours in total, but that will depend on your skill, patience and possibly physical strength.

The four-piece TV unit that I built last week came in seven boxes, and had to be fixed to the wall, so it took me about four hours. It would probably take an inexperienced person the best part of a day.

A few wardrobes and chests might not sound like a big job, but the extra-tall version of IKEA’s Pax wardrobes do present some unique problems. In this case, the ceiling wasn’t high enough to build them face-down, as usual, and then lift them into position. Instead, they had to be built standing up. How do you do that, bearing in mind that an eight-foot (244cm) board isn’t going to just stand there while you screw the bits together?

Carefully, is the answer. And successfully. It took a little longer than my preferred face-down method, but everything went together and stayed together. After that, the shelves, rails and drawers were fairly straightforward, although it’s worth pointing out that the more interior fittings you have, the longer you need to allow (especially when you’re paying for my time…). The doors on these tall Pax wardrobes are a doddle, with the two halves of the four hinges simply clicking together – as long as you can lift and control the weight of each door, that is. Once the middle hinges are attached you need to do the bottom one, then you can relax a bit while you do the top hinge. Only one hinge needed any adjustment for all six doors to be perfectly aligned. That’s a wonderful improvement on the old system where you could spend an age getting everything straight.

Bear in mind that the hinges have to go where they have to go, so shelves, drawers, connecting bolts, etc, can’t use the same holes. Experience has taught me to hang one door as a guide before I added all the interior fittings.

The three chests were all from the Malm range but all different – a three drawer one I did last of all, a two-by-three drawer low level chest and a tall narrow one with a mirrored lid. They all went together very nicely although assembling all those drawers did get a mite tedious! There were glass tops for the non-mirrored chests, too, which add a glossy and hard-wearing finish that compliments the high-gloss doors of the wardrobes.

Just the wardrobe door handles to add, and we’re done.

EDIT: Handles were duly added the following evening, once we’d agreed where to fit them (there are no pre-drilled or even pre-marked holes in the doors. In any case, the handles were from B&Q, so the screws would probably be at different centres from IKEA ones.). I measured very carefully, and several times, before drilling a single hole – it’s very easy to make an unsightly and costly mistake.

All done, the final result was very smart and the room as a whole looks bright and stylish.