Furniture assembly in Singapore: Taobao, IKEA and fitted pieces

1Three promises most furniture assemblers do not make

The worry with furniture assembly in Singapore is not the price. It is whether the person who turns up can actually do the job. Many assemblers are general handymen: a bed frame with instructions is fine, a wardrobe with a hundred parts and a Chinese parts list is not, and when they give up on site they still collect a call-out fee. Our service is built around that worry.

We can make these promises because the work is done with a local furniture retailer that has assembled and fitted furniture in Singapore for 16 years and runs its own customisation factory. Their people assemble furniture every day, and when a piece does not fit the room, they can cut, trim and refit it rather than leave it leaning against the wall.

2Send photos, get a quote within a few hours

1. Send us a photo of each item. Use the form below, with the pictures attached, or WhatsApp +65 8162 1037. A photo of the carton, the product listing or the piece itself is enough; for fitted work, add a photo of the wall or corner it goes in.
2. Get the quote within a few hours. We reply by email or WhatsApp, 9:00am to 6:00pm every day, with the price and the earliest dates. It is a final figure, not an estimate.
3. Book with half, pay the rest when it is done. Half the quote on booking, by PayNow or bank transfer, and the balance after the job, when you have looked it over. If the job cannot be done, the deposit is refunded in full.

3Furniture our partner has assembled and fitted in Singapore

The photos below are the partner's own work in customers' homes across Singapore: flat-pack pieces from Chinese platforms and local shops, and fitted work where the furniture had to be made to suit the room. They are the kind of job we quote every week.

Customers' homes, Singapore

4What we assemble: beds, wardrobes, tables, cabinets and more

Any furniture or household item that arrives in parts, for a home, an office, a shop or a café, anywhere in Singapore. You do not need to be shipping with us.

Flat-pack from IKEA or a local furniture shop is the simplest case: the parts are labelled and the instructions are in the box. We assemble those too, at the same final quote, including the pieces people struggle with most, such as sliding-door wardrobes and kitchen units.

5Taobao, 1688 and Tmall furniture: assembly without the guesswork

Furniture from the Chinese platforms is shipped knock-down to keep the volume, and the freight bill, small. It arrives as panels, a bag of hardware and, if you are lucky, an instruction sheet in Chinese. Some pieces have no instructions at all, because in China the seller sends an installer. That is where a general handyman gives up, and where an experienced furniture team does not: they read the Chinese parts list, know how the makers in Foshan build a wardrobe or a bed, and have assembled the same designs many times.

What helps us quote a Taobao or 1688 piece is the listing: send the product link or a screenshot along with the photo, and we can see the construction before the team arrives. Our guide to Taobao furniture assembly covers what to check before you order, what to ask the seller for and how to look after the parts until assembly day.

6Fitted and custom work: a wardrobe that fits the wall, skirting and all

A wardrobe bought online is made to a standard size. Your wall is not: there is skirting along the bottom, a beam or a ledge at the top, a window frame or a pipe where the side panel wants to sit. An ordinary assembler builds the box, finds that it stands a thumb's width off the wall, and leaves. Because our partner has a furniture factory of its own, our team can cut the base to clear the skirting, trim a side panel, add an infill at the top or scribe the back to an uneven wall, so the piece sits flush and looks built-in.

• Wardrobes and tall cabinets cut or packed to clear skirting, beams and ledges, and fixed to the wall.
• Wall-to-wall runs of bookcases, cabinets or desks, levelled and joined so the seams close.
• Blinds and curtain rails measured and fitted to bay windows and odd-shaped frames.
• Parts that are missing or broken on arrival: tell us, and we say whether the factory can make a replacement rather than the whole job waiting on the seller.

For fitted work, add a photo of the space and, if you have them, the wall's width and height in centimetres. Cutting and fitting are quoted with the assembly, and the figure you get is still the figure you pay.

7What the assembly quote depends on

We do not publish a price list because the same word, wardrobe, can mean a two-door flat-pack or a four-metre fitted run with sliding doors. The quote comes from your photos and is final. What moves it:

• What the items are and how many. A bed and two bedside tables is one visit; a whole flat is a day for two people.
• How the pieces are built. Sliding doors, hydraulic beds and glass panels take longer than a bookcase.
• Fitting. Cutting to clear skirting, scribing to a wall, drilling into concrete.
• Access. A lift to the floor, or stairs; whether the cartons are already in the room.
• Dismantling and disposal, if old furniture has to come out first.

Our guide to furniture assembly cost in Singapore goes through each of these, and through the questions to ask any assembler before you book, including the ones about call-out fees and top-ups on site.

8Dismantling, moving and disposing of old furniture

Assembly is often the second half of a job. The old wardrobe has to come apart before the new one goes in; a bed has to be dismantled to get it through the door to a new flat and rebuilt there. Our team dismantles, moves within Singapore and reassembles, and anything you no longer want goes to a licensed facility through our uncrating and disposal service, on the same visit where that is possible.

9Shipping furniture from China with us? Book assembly for delivery day

Many of our customers buy a sofa, a bed and a wardrobe on Taobao or in Foshan, ship them with us by sea at an all-in price, and want them standing in the flat the day the truck comes. Book assembly with the shipment and the team is there when the delivery is. The freight itself is explained in our guide to shipping from China to Singapore, and the furniture specifics, measuring, packing and the delivery into a flat, in our guide to shipping furniture from China.

If you have not bought the furniture yet, our buying service orders it for you, checks it at our hub in China while most sellers' seven-day return is still open, and ships it. Freight is priced on volume: put the carton sizes from the listing into our CBM calculator to see what the shipping comes to, then get an instant quote. Assembly is quoted separately, from the same photos.