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I consulted the wise geeks at WiseGeek.com and found this: "Flat pack furniture is furniture which is fabricated in flat parts and designed to be quickly and easily assembled. It is also sometimes called ready-to-assemble furniture or knock-down furniture. The primary advantage to flat pack furniture is that because it is packed flat, it is extremely space efficient, saving significant amounts of money for the manufacturer by reducing shipping and storage costs. Consumers in turn benefit from this because the company can pass the savings down with less expensive prices."
Flat packers can assemble everything from a wall unit to a toilet bowl of sorts. But there are naysayers: "Although ready-to-assemble furniture is less expensive to produce, to sell, and to purchase, some criticize the furniture for being of lower quality. In order to save on cost, flat-pack furniture may be made with particle board that has been laminated with synthetic materials, rather than from solid timber."
