DIY furniture can mean two things. The first meaning is that the furniture is built from scratch from a set of raw materials. The second meaning is that the furniture is prepackaged but sold disassembled, meaning the buyer must assemble it before they can use it.

Regardless of which type of DIY furniture it is, anyone who has experience making or assembling furniture is likely to admit that it can be a bit of a head-scratcher. Fortunately, a healthy number of DIY content creators are at their disposal.

Among them would be Tommy and Dewi, who prefer only to share their nicknames. They are the couple behind the Instagram account @biasalahanakmuda, where they share various things about home — from celebrities' houses reviews to DIY tips. The account has successfully attracted 145,000 followers at the time of writing.

"We were ecstatic to finally have a new home back in 2020, and it was empty. [...] so we started to [buy the furniture one by one], and we thought the process was so fun [that we shared it on social media]," said Tommy. "[My wife and I] majored in architecture, and [...] we like to discuss interior design in general."

The account has an interesting tagline on its profile: "Rumah Tanpa IKEA" (A home without Ikea). Ikea is known for its popular furniture and home decor products that come with a catch: Customers might need to assemble them on their own if they do not wish to pay assembly fees.

Getting dirty; Tommy would make various things out of leftover cement from their house renovation. (Courtesy of Biasalah Anak Muda) (Personal collection/Courtesy of Biasalah Anak Muda)

Tommy said they had nothing against the furniture retail company. The tagline simply meant they had decided to fill their new home with local brands.

"We used to live abroad and we filled our residence with Ikea. When we started living in our own home in Jagakarsa, we had no Ikea products, mainly because it's too far to travel to Ikea and also there's the pandemic," said Tommy.

"We actually love Ikea, and we think the way they make us assemble our own furniture is [a smart marketing move]. As a matter of fact, many local brands are following their lead, like Olympic, and I think it's amazing."

L for Labor

Putting aside the satisfaction of building one's own furniture, often there are other underlying reasons when people choose DIY furniture instead of ready-made ones. It might be a matter of price, or perhaps, personal taste.

"I moved to my mother's house earlier in April with my daughter," said Erin Metasari, a 43-year-old team consultant at a PR agency in Tangerang Selatan. "It was an ethnic-style house, so the colors were very bleak. I wanted to spice up the house so my young daughter could feel more comfortable."

Her first project for the house was a playroom for her daughter and her bedroom. "I'm the type of person who doesn't really like [mass-produced products]. For example, I once wanted to buy a carpet, but [because the ones on sale weren't suitable for my taste] I ended up making it on my own."

Cheap and Chic; Coordinated by colors, the upcycled doormats are sewn together by Erin M. to form a carpet. (Courtesy of Erin Metasari) (Personal collection/Courtesy of Erin Metasari)

Erin M. employed her creative energy and utilized the doormats she purchased at a local department store to make one. "I went to Hari Hari, a popular cheap department store in Bintaro, and found out that the doormats were "buy two, get one free". [...] I bought 16 of them and sewed them into one [following the color blocks that I had planned beforehand]."

If Erin M. is all about unique, personalized furniture, Tommy and his wife are about practicality. The couple often shares DIY tricks on how their followers can make furniture like the ones retailers have in their stores. "My wife is into [handicrafts]. She's very neat on things that require cutting or gluing, and I would do things that are a bit more dirty, like utilizing [leftover cement]."

They say one of their most memorable projects was probably the organizer boxes they crafted from instant noodles cardboard boxes. "If you buy it in a store, one storage box can cost Rp 100,000 [US$7,05]. [If you make it yourself], a total of six boxes [will only cost you Rp 174,000 [$12,27] [...] not to mention there's a feeling of intimacy when you make it together," they wrote in the caption. "We draw inspiration from online tutorials [on DIY]," Tommy added.

L for Love

People tend to value the things they personally created more, and the more people pour their labor into them, the likelier they are to cherish them. For Erin, who only has one name, some furniture that she has assembled has a particular sentimental value to her.

"So I just moved to a rented house [in April] and have my own room. It's nice to be able to arrange the room according to my own will," said the 30-year-old private employee from Denpasar when asked about her experience with DIY furniture.

"At that time, I just assembled a nightstand [to put things next to the bed [that I bought from Shopee as well as] a clothes hanger [from Ace Hardware]. [It took me] about an hour to assemble the nightstand. For the clothes hanger, it took one to two hours, if I'm not mistaken."

Cheap and Chic; Coordinated by colors, the upcycled doormats are sewn together by Erin M. to form a carpet. (Courtesy of Erin Metasari) (Personal collection/Courtesy of Erin Metasari)

"It was relatively easy. [It took longer than expected] because I'm an amateur and have never assembled any furniture," said Erin. The assembled nightstand was bought for her mother, who unfortunately passed away recently due to breast cancer.

Regardless of her inexperience, she still plans to continue her DIY home decor project. "I want to start small first. There isn't an Ikea here yet, so if one opens up, I might want to try assembling a wardrobe or other product from Ikea. [I heard] they will open next year in Bali."

The same goes with Erin M., who said she had bought several heavy-duty tools from the nearest building materials stores in order to broaden the scope of her DIY projects. "I plan to make more things from [wooden] containers, like cabinets or shelves," she said. "I successfully made a bedstead out of several [wooden] containers recently. It was sturdy, practical, and goes well with [the aesthetic of] my bedroom."

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