Beginning at the beginning – knolling

The best way to start with a kit this complex, particularly when you don't have instructions, is by knolling. What is knolling, you ask? Knolling is the process of laying out all of the parts in an orderly fashion, all at right angles, so that you can see what you are working with, as demonstrated in the following image:

Knolling was – discovered – by a janitor by the name of Andrew Kromelow, who worked at Frank Gehry’s furniture factory. The factory designed and made chairs for Knoll, a company started by Florence Knoll, who designed furniture with simple geometric forms. Each night, Andrew would arrange all of the tools and workbenches in careful arrays of rectangular forms, which he called knolling in honor of the furniture. We use knolling to figure out just what we have and what order to put it together in.