Rattan garden furniture is probably one of the best pieces of furniture available in the country. With its top furniture in different categories, it is hard not to listen to your neighbour yapping about it. If you are here, I am assuming that you are finally tired of hearing the chatter about rattan furniture and want to see how good it is by buying it and testing for yourself, or you have already bought it and are quite perplexed about how to set it up. I will guide you on how to assemble rattan garden furniture.
If you are in the market for a piece of new rattan furniture, some guides have been prepared for you. Check them out below:
- Rattan Cube Furniture
- Zero Gravity Chair
- Rattan Sun Loungers
- Rattan Garden Benches
- Rattan Garden Chairs.
There are different types of rattan garden furniture available, depending on what use you want to put it to.
For this article, we will assemble rattan garden
- Dining table
- Garden chair
- Outdoor four-piece sofa set
- Coffee table
Rattan garden furniture set comes with its parts packaged nicely into a bag. The first thing we usually advise people to do is make sure that all the necessary components are complete. Take out the pieces one by one and identify where they will fit into when you finally set them up. We advise you to do this by having a picture of a fully-assembled furniture set and then comparing the components to the assembled on. If any part is not shipped or incomplete, you should call the company. Let’s begin.
Assembling the dining table
I suggest that you set up the dining table first, which can be the easiest and less confusing piece to assemble. Tables are always assembled upside down, so you need to get the table’s components together, starting from the four legs and the top. Screw these parts together. There are already holes on the corners of the tabletop where your screws are meant to fit into. Find these holes and using the appropriate screwdriver, screw the parts together.
After you must have screwed the parts together, You want to turn the table the right way to the upside.
Testing for balance
The next step is to test the assembly for stability and balance. You might’ve done everything right, but for some weird reason, the table is poorly balanced which will cause problems later on. Using your hand, press down on the table. Does it buckle? Does one of its legs wobble more than others? If it exhibits any of these, then it is a sign that you didn’t assemble it right. Therefore, you need to disassemble it (the whole thing or unscrew the affected part) and then reassemble it.
Assembling the garden chair
The chairs are assembled a little differently from the dining table. The first thing you need to do is to match complementary parts of the chair together. What do I mean?
If you look closely at each piece of the chair (a chair is made of four pieces, by the way), you will notice that they are in complementary pairs of two. You have to match these pairs to ensure a perfect fit. Please start with the chair’s front. Place it on the floor with the connecting side facing up, then take the chair’s seat and align it with the frame and use a screwdriver to hold everything in place.
When you want to fix the back, you will notice that it extends far longer than it should, but that’s no cause for alarm. Get it into position and then use a screwdriver to tighten it, and that’s all.
Testing for balance
Testing whether everything is in place is very simple to do with the rattan garden chair. Turn the chair over to see if any of the screws fall off. Also, try sitting on it. Does it bend to one side when you sit on it or does one of the legs wobble? Does any of the arms shake a little? Can it carry your weight without buckling? If it passes all these tests, you are good to go. Else, you should loosen and either tighten further. You can also disassemble and reassemble it depending on what you are trying to achieve.
Assembling the outdoor four-piece sofa Set
The first thing you need to do is unpack and identify each sofa’s parts and keep them in easily recognizable piles. What might help is arranging the parts in order of use and proximity, i.e., if two pieces are supposed to fit together, then you should probably keep them together. You will start assembling from the side. So, place the left frame on the floor. You will build it by assembling the other parts. Now, put the two corner pieces together so that the screws match and can be easily screwed together. Screw the two corner pieces together.
After doing this, the next logical step is to add and screw the back piece together. When doing this, make sure the screws are tightly adjusted as the back forms most of the chair’s support and hold other parts together. Now, lift the sofa so it is no longer standing sideways; let it stand in the regular positions.
The next part to assemble is the left piece. For this, you have to place the chair on its side to have ample space to screw its parts.
Assembling the Coffee Table
A rattan coffee table usually comes with two side pieces. Place them side by side to gauge where you are putting each. Now screw both of them together, and when you are sure you are done with that, screw on the top piece. After that, the other parts are relatively easy to set up, as it involves placing cushions on the sofa to make it presentable.
Testing for stability
There’s not much to test here except checking for the coffee table’s stability. Put a little pressure on it to test this. Then to check for any loose screw, raise it and shake it a bit. Does any of the screws sound loose or does it make any wonky sound? Does any screw fall off? It would help if you were on the lookout for all this.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is rattan furniture easy to assemble?
Yes, apart from the furniture being well designed and intuitive to use, it comes with an instructional manual that lays down a step-by-step guide to setting up each piece and ensuring they work well together. Even if you get stuck, there’s no cause for alarm. Rattan garden furniture has been around for a long time, so tutorials on how to assemble them have never been more straightforward. An example is this excellent guide I’ve prepared for you.
I spoiled some parts. What should I do?
You should first take a deep breath. Seriously, panicking has never helped anyone, so you should use a calm head to evaluate the damage and see what can be salvaged from it.
If it’s a minor tear, then there’s nothing to worry about. Just find a suitable covering to hide it from public view, else, if the incision or damage is more severe, you should try to close it up using a glue.
Identify the part that needs fixing. If you can cut it out, that’s fine. This will make room for another material. Apply epoxy-resin glue to the affected region(s), and cover the region(s) with a suitable replacement material.
Check out this article for a full guide on how to repair plastic rattan furniture
Should I buy a flat-packed or an assembled rattan garden furniture?
It depends. Both options have their peculiar advantages and disadvantages, and the decision to buy either of them depends on your peculiar situation.
If you are looking for something easy to set up and with quality control done by trusted professionals, you should probably go for the fully assembled rattan garden furniture. This option is costlier than the flat-packed option.
If, on the other hand, you are a technical person who likes working in the outdoors with your hands and looking to perform quality control by your hand, then the flat-packed option is the way for you to go.
Purchasing the flat-packed option also saves you money, so it’s a win-win for you.
Summary
Assembling a rattan garden furniture is a simple task that you can perform in a single noon. Still, due to the overabundance of bad ways to do this and the often confusing vague advice people receive, I’ve compiled this ultimate guide on how to assemble rattan garden furniture and prevent mistakes. Happy Assembling!
Further Reading
For more information and a visual guide on how to assemble rattan garden furniture, watch the video below