MFI Flatpack

[The Medway Handyman]

Put together a double wardrobe, king-size bed, four drawer chest & two single drawer chests today - all MFI.

I know they are the butt of many jokes, but I was extremely impressed with the design & build quality.

Wardrobe back sat in a groove on all four sides and had the screw in plastic wedges to hold it firm, doors had 4 click on type hinges each.

Drawer unit even more impressive - actually had a back, same design as wardrobe, really heavy duty drawer runners with soft close & height adjustment so you can get the gaps spot on, drawer bottoms in a nice deep groove all round + plastic wedges, drawer front held on by 2 cam/dowels each side, back dowelled & screwed.

Finish was perfect, not a mark anywhere.

And all the screws had proper Pozidrive heads that didn't strip out with a driver!

Most impressed with it.

[John]

I guess they use some impressive machinery - and design the features to get the best out of the machinery. They have probably realised how much staff time goes on dealing with complaints and returns.

[EricP]

You must have been at the top end of the ranges.

Having assembled and installed three MFI kitchens from the cheapskate ranges for people in recent years, nothing will get me to do it again, for anything other than silly money.

[TheOldFellow]

Despite what others have found, and I don't doubt them at all, I have always found MFI/Schreiber to be very good value. I fitted 4 kitchens, in 1977, 1979, 1990, and 2001 with them, and I never had a moment's worry when fitting them, and the last two are still in excellent condition today.

R.

[The Medway Handyman]

Two door robe was 'Urban Gloss' £150.

Suppose that is relatively top end for flatpack.

[Bruce]

MFI couldn't have carried on as they were - they would have gone bust.

In fact, they very nearly did, and were lucky to be bought as a going concern a couple of years ago. I recall reading that the first thing the new owners did was to sever formal ties with MFI's manufacturing arm which was seen as being the root of so many problems with the quality of MFI's products.

I visited an MFI store recently, for the first time in about four years. I thought the quality of the kitchen and bedroom furniture had considerably improved.

[Simon Stroud]

The only problem I had with our "Schreiber" kitchen units was that they were all about 1-2mm oversized on the width.

Not a problem for the average punter I guess, but I loke to plan things to millimetre accuracy and had laid out a row of units to EXACTLY fit along one side of the room. Fortunately at one point I planned in a full height "decor end panel" between a tall unit and the adjacent base unit, so I was able to gain about 20mm by cutting that off above the worktop instead, otherwise I would have been tunnelling into the plaster at one end.

Still looks fine about 10 years later.

Regards, Simon.