Most of the furniture I buy is stuff that I have had to put together myself. Other items like the barbeque are also U-build. I have a good collection of tools and many items come with small tools for their assembly. I personally prefer to build the items myself and unbuild them as needed rather than paying the extra for assembly. The other advantage is that I can transport the unassembled items a lot easier as they are often separate pieces or more compact than the assebled version of the product. Others I know prefer to have their items delivered in one piece as the convenience is worth it to them. Do you prefer items to arrive in one piece? Are you Handy enough to put them together yourself?
Yes and No. If it's something sturdy and built to last a long time, I don't mind putting it together myself. But some the assemble-yourself stuff is made very cheaply and the parts themselves don't always fit together flush, not to mention the furniture itself will start to wobble and fall apart with extended use. I do like that the furniture is generally lighter and easier to move around, especially if you plan on moving every few years and need to relocate often. That's one reason I won't invest in any super heavy high quality furniture, because I move every 3 or so years and it's a pain to bring from place to place. Plus I can't stand it getting all banged up and damaged from the move. One really bone headed mistake I made years ago was with a computer desk I had bought. I needed something big and sturdy because I had bought a new computer with a huge monitor (this was back when CRT monitors were still around). For some reason it seemed like a good idea at the time to just put it together in the garage where I had all my tools, then carry it in the house. It never occurred to me to measure the damn thing first to make sure it would even fit through the door put together. Of course it didn't, and it wasn't easy to take back apart at all either, since many of the parts snapped together permanently.
It really does depend for me, too. If I'm going to transport it myself or if it's fairly simple furniture, then I don't mind doing it myself. I bought office chairs recently, for example, and they came with all the tools and were pretty simple to put together. I could transport 2 boxes of parts a whole lot easier than I would've transported 2 large office chairs that were already assembled....and it really wasn't worth the extra 50 bucks to have them put them together for me either, especially after I saw how the ones in store had been put together poorly, lol.
It all depends on the distance that am getting the product from. If you are going to get the product from far and it can break easily then it will be better if the product is U-build but it is near have it delivered when it is pre-assembled hoping you have enough space to get it in past the door.
