IKEA HEMNES solid pine chest of drawers assembly in London

IKEA HEMNES Chest of Drawers Assembly in London

IKEA HEMNES Chest of Drawers Assembly in London

HEMNES is IKEA's solid pine chest of drawers range, and it builds nothing like the foil-wrapped particleboard chests people usually have in mind. The carcass is pine rails and panels joined with dowels and cam locks, the back is fibreboard fixed with metal nails, and — the part that swallows the afternoon — none of the drawers arrive made up. Each one is a loose front, two sides, a back and a fibreboard base that has to be assembled, squared and hung before the next one starts. On the 160 cm eight-drawer that is eight drawer boxes built from scratch after the carcass is already standing.

TaskMan of London assembles HEMNES chests across London within the M25. We build in the room the chest is going to live in, fit the wall restraint as standard rather than as an extra, and take the packaging away. To book, send photos of the boxes, the room and the wall over WhatsApp and we confirm everything before you book — no surprises on the day.

The details below about the current range — sizes, finishes, article numbers and package weights — were checked on ikea.com/gb on 18 August 2026. IKEA changes its range regularly, so check the pack you actually have against the current product page.

Part of our IKEA assembly London service.

Which IKEA HEMNES chest of drawers sizes we build

  • HEMNES chest of 2 drawers, white stain, 54 x 38 x 66 cm, art. 802.426.27 — one package, 14.98 kg package weight. Note the 38 cm depth: this is the shallow bedside-sized member of the range, and it is the odd one out. Every larger HEMNES chest is 50 cm deep.
  • HEMNES chest of 3 drawers, white stain, 108 x 50 x 96 cm, art. 804.247.45 — two packages, 29.60 kg and 16.30 kg package weights.
  • HEMNES chest of 3 drawers, grey-green/light brown stained, 108 x 50 x 96 cm, art. 706.107.38 — two packages, 30.15 kg and 16.30 kg package weights. Listed on ikea.com/gb with a 'Limited edition' badge, so this finish may not be around indefinitely.
  • HEMNES chest of 6 drawers, white stain, 108 x 50 x 131 cm, art. 602.392.73 — two packages, 23.31 kg and 28.15 kg package weights.
  • HEMNES chest of 8 drawers, white stain, 160 x 50 x 96 cm, art. 102.392.80 — three packages, 22.00 kg, 18.40 kg and 20.40 kg package weights. The largest carton measures 164 x 54 x 6 cm.
  • Finishes verified on ikea.com/gb on 18 August 2026: white stain on the 2-, 3-, 6- and 8-drawer, and grey-green/light brown stained on the 3-drawer. Other stains appear on IKEA sites in other markets and have not been confirmed for the UK.

Nothing in the HEMNES chest of drawers range carried a discontinued or last-chance notice on ikea.com/gb on 18 August 2026. The one thing worth knowing is that the grey-green/light brown stained 3-drawer (art. 706.107.38) carries a 'Limited edition' badge, so if you want that colour it may not be available indefinitely. The white stain variants across all four sizes are part of the standard range.

How long IKEA HEMNES chest of drawers assembly takes

2-drawer 30-45 minutes; 3-drawer 60-90 minutes; 6-drawer 85-120 minutes; 8-drawer 110-150 minutes. Add 15-25 minutes for wall anchoring into plasterboard or dot-and-dab, and about 10 minutes for packaging removal. We send two fitters to the 6- and 8-drawer. These are our own estimates from field experience; IKEA does not publish assembly times.

Difficulty: hard. Long builds are exactly what we are set up for — message us and we will confirm everything before you book.

Where IKEA HEMNES chest of drawers builds go wrong

The parts of this build that cost people an afternoon:

  • The left and right side frames are mirror images, not interchangeable. The cam-bolt holes and the runner pilot holes sit on opposite faces of each pair of rails. Lay all four rails out and check which face the runner holes are on before a single fitting goes in. Get a pair the wrong way round and the runner screw holes end up on the outside of the chest — something you only discover after the frame is cam-locked together and you are ready to hang drawers.
  • IKEA prints crossed-out boxes in the HEMNES manual, and the ones on this range are about screws, not dowels. In the 6-drawer manual, steps 11 and 15 cross out screw 100214 where 100232 belongs and vice versa — two long screws that look nearly identical in the bag. Step 4 crosses out 100347 where 100349 belongs. If the manual has bothered to draw a red cross through a screw, sort that bag before you start rather than picking by eye.
  • Three near-identical short screws do three different jobs. Part 100349 fixes the runners to the carcass side frames and 100347 fixes the runner brackets to the drawer sides; the 8-drawer adds a third, 100365, for runner brackets. Put the longer carcass screw into a drawer side and it breaks through the inside face of the pine and scores the drawer next to it. Solid pine gives no resistance to warn you before it punches through.
  • The cam bolts screw into raw pine, not a threaded metal insert. One extra second on the drill trigger and the thread strips the pine out completely — that hole is then dead and needs glue and a dowel to recover. Drive them to just short of the shoulder and finish the last turn by hand so the collar sits flush.
  • The cam locks are directional. They carry an arrow and a '-' / '+' mark, they have to drop in with the arrow pointing at the bolt hole, and they turn no more than a half turn. Keep turning past the stop and you either crack the cam housing or crush the pine around it, leaving a joint that will never pull tight again.
  • Both sets of drawer runners must go onto the side frames while the frames are still flat on the floor. Once the carcass is standing, the lower runners are almost impossible to drive square, and a runner sitting a millimetre or two out of parallel gives a drawer that runs sweetly for the first 200 mm then drops at the end of its travel. The runner pairs are handed as well: the hooked front bracket faces inward and the stop clip goes to the front.
  • The drawers are not supplied made up. Every drawer is five loose parts — solid pine front, two solid pine sides, a back and a fibreboard base — and the base slides in from the rear after the sides are cam-locked to the front. Fit the drawer back before the base and the whole drawer has to come apart again. The wide drawers additionally take a metal centre stiffener that hooks at the front and then screws down; leave it out and the base bows and drags on the rail below.
  • The drawer backs are not screwed. They are fixed with ribbed plastic pins (part 110519) that you tap home with a hammer — six on a large drawer, four on a small one. Once those pins are driven, the drawer is effectively permanent. Check the front is the right way up and that the side carrying the pre-applied tip-over warning label faces inward before you pick up the hammer.
  • The fibreboard back panel is the only thing stopping the carcass racking, and it goes on with metal nails (part 101221) and nothing else — 16 nails on the 6-drawer, 28 on the 8-drawer. Nail one corner, then measure both diagonals across the back opening and adjust before committing the rest. It matters more here than on most flat-packs because HEMNES drawer fronts are one-piece solid pine with no separate front and no adjustment screws, so a racked carcass cannot be disguised afterwards by shifting the fronts.
  • Those back-panel nails run within a few millimetres of the rear edge of the finished top panel. A missed hammer strike dents solid pine permanently and it shows straight through the stain. Use a nail punch for the last few millimetres.
  • The knobs fix with machine screws driven through the drawer front from the inside. Pine is soft: run a driver on and the knob collar pulls into the lacquer, leaving a bright ring around the base of every knob. Nip them up by hand.
  • Once the top is on, the chest is top-heavy and that top panel is held by cam locks, not glue. Lift a HEMNES by the legs or the base frame — never by the overhanging top edge, which is exactly where people instinctively grab it.

Safety and wall fixing

This item must be secured to the wall. We fit the restraint as part of the job and will not leave it standing loose.

  • The white stain 3-, 6- and 8-drawer product pages on ikea.com/gb state that a wall-anchoring kit is included, the grey-green 3-drawer page states that a safety fitting is included, and each carries IKEA's warning that the product is a tipping hazard and must be securely anchored. Fitting it is not optional and we fit it as standard. The 2-drawer's UK page says only 'Psst! Please attach to the wall' and does not confirm an included kit — we bring our own fixings for that one.
  • Even the 160 cm wide 8-drawer ships with a single restraint strap and one drill point in the wall. Worth knowing: IKEA's own anchoring kit for the MALM chest of 6 drawers, which is exactly the same 160 cm width, contains two metal restraint brackets. On a chest that wide, a single central strap still allows the carcass to twist, so TaskMan of London will normally recommend a second restraint at the other end. That is our own trade practice, not an IKEA instruction.
  • IKEA's own wording is that the supplied screw and plug suit most solid (A) and hollow (B) walls, and that for solid timber (C) you use the screw without a plug, seeking professional advice if you are uncertain. The fixing has to match the wall actually in front of you. A plain plastic expansion plug spinning in a dot-and-dab cavity is holding nothing at all.
  • These are heavy pieces of furniture. Package weights listed on ikea.com/gb total roughly 46 kg for the 3-drawer, 51 kg for the 6-drawer and 61 kg for the 8-drawer — those are package weights, so they include the cartons and packing, but they give a fair picture of the mass involved before any clothing goes in. That is more than enough to injure a child, which is why the restraint goes on regardless of size.
  • HEMNES drawers have a pull-out stop, so a drawer will not fall out of the frame when opened. That is a fall-out stop, not an anti-tip interlock — it does not prevent several drawers being open at once. Open one drawer at a time and load the heaviest items into the lowest drawers.
  • A permanent tip-over warning label is applied inside a drawer and must not be removed. We leave it in place.
  • Never stand a television on a chest of drawers.
  • Customers often ask about the recall, so here is the accurate version. In June 2016 IKEA recalled chests of drawers in the United States and Canada, and HEMNES was included — Health Canada's notice lists HEMNES 3-, 5- and 6-drawer chests, the 6-drawer excepting the painted white finish, and IKEA's US recall named HEMNES alongside MALM, HOPEN and BRIMNES. The 8-drawer HEMNES was not on the recalled model list, but it is the model linked to the death of a two-year-old in Lakeland, Florida in May 2017. IKEA stated at the time that it was not recalling any chest of drawers in the UK and Ireland, on the grounds that the recall was made against a North American voluntary standard. None of this changes the advice in either direction: every chest of drawers in a home with children needs to be anchored to the wall.
  • We check for buried cables and pipes with a detector before drilling. The anchor point sits high on the wall, which is exactly the zone where a lighting drop or a switch cable runs.

IKEA HEMNES chest of drawers assembly in London homes

Two London realities shape this job. First, walls. The HEMNES restraint has to go into whatever is actually behind the plaster, and in London that is rarely simple masonry: dot-and-dab plasterboard over block in eighties and nineties conversions, timber stud in loft and garage conversions, metal stud in new-build flats, and lath and plaster in Victorian and Edwardian houses. Behind dot-and-dab there is typically a 10-25 mm void, so a plastic expansion plug spins uselessly - the fixing has to reach through to the block or grip the board mechanically. Chimney breasts and single-skin party walls in terraces bring their own problems, and the anchor point sits high on the wall, right where lighting drops and switch cables run, so it gets scanned before it gets drilled. We carry spring toggles, metal self-drill anchors and long-reach frame fixings and choose on the day. Second, access and space. The 8-drawer arrives as three cartons and the longest measures 164 cm, which will not turn a tight Victorian half-landing, and IKEA drivers frequently leave packs in the communal hall rather than the bedroom. Upper-floor flats with no lift need the carry planned before the slot is booked. Once the chest is in the room it has to be laid front-down to nail the back panel, and because it lies on its face that means roughly 1.7 m x 1.0 m of clear floor for the 8-drawer, or about 1.1 m x 1.35 m for the 6-drawer, plus room to work around it - not always available in a London second bedroom, so the furniture layout gets planned before the first fitting goes in. Add CPZ parking, permits or bay suspensions, and restricted delivery windows in managed blocks. TaskMan of London covers everywhere inside the M25: send photos of the boxes, the room and the wall over WhatsApp and everything is confirmed before you book.

Before we arrive

  • Clear the working area: roughly 2 m x 2 m of floor, plus room to lay the carcass front-down for the back panel. Because it lies on its face, the footprint at that stage is the width by the height — about 1.7 m x 1.0 m for the 8-drawer and roughly 1.1 m x 1.35 m for the 6-drawer, plus working room to kneel around it.
  • Decide the final position before we start. The wall is drilled before the chest is pushed back, so moving it afterwards means re-drilling.
  • Tell us the wall construction if you know it: solid brick, dot-and-dab plasterboard on block, timber stud, metal stud, or lath and plaster. It decides which anchors we bring.
  • Keep the flat packs lying flat, not standing on end. The long solid pine rails will bow if they are propped upright against a wall for weeks, and a bowed rail will not pull square.
  • Open and check the packs for transit damage before the appointment. A split rail, cracked drawer front or missing fitting means an IKEA replacement, which cannot be sourced on the day.
  • Confirm access: lift dimensions or stair turns, and whether the longest package will make the turn. The 8-drawer's largest carton is 164 cm long, and a tight Victorian half-landing often will not take it.
  • Sort out parking - CPZ bay, permit or suspension - and tell us the loading arrangements for the building.
  • Move curtains, bedding and anything fragile out of the room. Drilling into London brick makes fine dust that travels.
  • Keep children and pets out of the room while we work; there are loose fittings, plastic pins, hammers and a drill in use.
  • Tell us in advance if you want the packaging taken away, and whether an old chest needs dismantling or moving.

IKEA HEMNES chest of drawers assembly FAQs

Will you anchor the HEMNES to the wall, and can I ask you not to?

We anchor it as standard. IKEA supplies the restraint kit with the 3-, 6- and 8-drawer chests and labels the product a tipping hazard that must be securely anchored, so leaving it loose is not something TaskMan of London will do. If the chest genuinely cannot be anchored - a listed wall we are not permitted to drill, for example - we will tell you before we start and talk through the alternatives rather than quietly skipping it. On the 160 cm 8-drawer we will usually suggest a second restraint at the far end; that is our own recommendation rather than an IKEA requirement, and it is your call.

My bedroom wall is plasterboard. Will the fixings in the IKEA bag actually hold it?

Often not on their own. Most London bedrooms are stud partition or dot-and-dab board over block, and behind dot-and-dab there is typically a 10-25 mm void, so a plastic expansion plug spins in the cavity and grips nothing. Our fitters carry spring toggles, metal self-drill anchors and long-reach frame fixings, and choose by what the wall actually turns out to be, after scanning for cables and pipes. On a stud wall we aim for the timber wherever the geometry allows.

How does HEMNES compare with MALM to build? A friend said MALM took an hour.

The two are more alike than people assume, and we would rather not sell you a multiple. Both build their drawers from loose panels - front, two sides, back and base - and neither range has adjustable drawer fronts. On the manuals, the 160 cm MALM chest of 6 drawers runs 43 steps against 51 for the 160 cm HEMNES 8-drawer, and the MALM at that width actually ships heavier than the HEMNES, not lighter. What HEMNES adds is solid pine everywhere, which is less forgiving: it strips, splits and marks in ways foil-wrapped board does not, so the work is slower and more careful rather than simply longer.

The 8-drawer is huge. Can you build it in the living room and carry it upstairs?

We would rather not. Assembled it is 160 cm wide and genuinely heavy - its three flat packs alone total roughly 61 kg in package weight - and the top panel is held on with cam locks, so it is not a handle. We build it in the room where it is going to live. If access to that room is genuinely too tight for the packs, send us photos of the stairs and doorways over WhatsApp and we will work the plan out before the day rather than on it.

A part is damaged or a fitting is missing. What happens?

IKEA parts cannot be bought on the day, so we cannot substitute a stripped cam bolt or a cracked rail. Please open and check the packs before we arrive. If something is missing, IKEA supplies replacement fittings free through customer service, and we can order in advance if you send us the part number - it is printed next to the item in the manual.

Can you take my HEMNES apart and rebuild it when I move?

Partly. The carcass comes apart at the cam locks and goes back together fine. The drawers do not - their backs are held by ribbed plastic pins hammered home, not screws, so we move the drawers whole. We will not re-drive a cam bolt into a hole that has already stripped, so on a rebuild we assess each joint and tell you honestly whether it will pull up tight again.

Do you tidy up and take the flat-pack cardboard away?

Yes. We vacuum the room, take the cardboard, polystyrene and packaging with us, and hand back the leftover fittings and the assembly manual - IKEA's part numbers are the only easy way to order a replacement fitting later.

Book IKEA HEMNES chest of drawers assembly in London

Send us a photo of the boxes or the product name, your postcode and when suits you. We will come back with everything confirmed before you book — no obligation, no call-out surprises.

WhatsApp us to get started or call 07700 170 070, 7 days a week.

Every job is done by TaskMan of London's own DBS-checked, insured team and carries our 12-month workmanship warranty.