I assembled a few cabinets to demonstrate how the process goes. After pulling out the directions and your cabinet’s pieces and parts, I like to arrange things as they appear in the instructions. So here I’ve got all the Ikea cabinet pieces and parts pretty much like they are displayed in the instructions. Notice that I’m also doing the Ikea cabinet assembly on a soft surface to avoid damaging my precious cabinets.

Here, I’ve laid out all the dowels, screws, nails, etc. To my great chagrin, Ikea only gave me 7 of the metal dowels at the very left. On a hunch, I went to the local hardware and found a very similar metal dowel for $1.27.

Here I’ve attached what I’ll call the rear mounting bracket. Notice that its placement is just below the corner.

Here’s the beginning of the metal dowel insertion. And this is when I figured out that I was one metal dowel short. I figured I had several extra of these from previous Ikea assembly projects. A search of the usual locations revealed no suspects however.

Here’s is the correct wooden dowel placement. The instructions will try to tell you otherwise but THEY ARE WRONG.

Ikea’s mistaken cabinet assembly instructions

Ace Hardware came through and gave me a pretty close match for my missing metal dowel. I heard them muttering to themselves as I left – “That’s one of those goofy furniture assembly things, tarnation!”

Here’s the sides assembled. Before you proceed with a step in the Ikea instructions, it’s a good idea to picture the finished product in your mind and consider what you are doing towards that end. A too rapid assembly often results in mistakes and if you complete some steps there may not be any going back to fix it.

For example, if you proceed to nail the back of the cabinet on with the 2 dozen or so nails, it’s really difficult to undo such a move. Questions to ask include – what side should be facing in and what side should be out and – am I nailing this to the correct side and – where do the holes line up? These are all really good questions to consider as well as what should my finished product look like?

Check for square here.

And here’s the almost finished cabinet. My installer likes to just take them to this point and then install them. After that, we will add the doors, shelves, etc.

And here’s a message a received from Ikea on the following day after emailing them:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. We do apologize for any
inconvenience.

Generally, we do recommend returning to the store or contacting your
store directly in order to obtain spare parts, however, we will be
more than happy to assist you with obtaining the spare parts you
require.

Please respond back with the following information so that we may
submit your request.

-first and last name
-mailing address
-contact phone number
-8 digit article number (located above the name of the item on the
receipt, as well as on the packaging, and looks like this:
000.000.00)
-11 digit receipt number (located in the upper, right-hand corner of
the receipt, and looks like this: 0000 0000 000
-Date of purchase
-Detailed explanation of the parts needed, including all part numbers
(5/6 digit part numbers can be found on the assembly instructions)

We thank you for giving us the opportunity to assist you, and hope
this information has been helpful.

Best Regards,
Natalie
IKEA Customer Care Center

Natalie,

Don’t have time to screw around with going back and forth over a simple fastener. I just went to the local hardware store and got the part.

Thanks,

Andy