After you’ve run the gauntlet at IKEA, navigating the blue-and-yellow maze of Swedish meatballs and fighting couples, you bring home not pieces of furniture but slices of particleboard with umlauted names. Then, it’s your responsibility to make them into furniture. This trade-off is what keeps IKEA furniture so cheap, but the struggle to assemble it is real. IKEA assembly is not for the faint of heart, but the right IKEA tools can save the day (and your sanity, what remains of it after a trip to the store itself).

That’s why there are so many IKEA-specific furniture assembly companies out there. Hell, even Ikea purchased Task Rabbit to help out. That’s also why we reached out to a number of these professional IKEA furniture assemblers to figure out what tools they use to whip up those BRIMNES wardrobes and BILLY bookcases in record time. Their recommendations include everything from hex-bits that help you tighten faster to a good old-fashioned rubber mallet for smacking shelving into place. Here, then, are the best tools for assembling Ikea furniture quickly. Lycka till! (That’s Swedish for good luck.)

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