Really Nice for the price
First off I was really happy because it arrived 5 days before the earliest date they had given me, Awesome! because it was before Christmas and dressed up a bald spot in the living room quite nicely. My husband and young adult son were able to put it together in less than an hour, I think it was like 40 minutes?. It's not rock solid, but it's definitely not rickety either; if your trying to move it by yourself, hopefully it's not loaded with a lot of things that can tip over, like I do, lol! It's doable I just had to move slowly and carefully, but you have to lift it up slight from both sides and move simultaneously, if you try to push from one side, it shifts on that side and not as much the other, just slightly, it wasn't a lot of give, and didn't feel like it would give much more, but I didn't keep doing it either. Other than that, it had no voccing, it had a new furniture smell, if that makes sense? That's the only way I can describe it, but even that was pretty slight, but I didn't notice that nasty chemical smell called "voccing" ...and I've definitely bought pieces that did in the past that were pretty bad. It's not solid wood, and for this price I wouldn't expect it to be anything well made if it was solid wood... sad to say, because $200+ isn't exactly cheap IMO, but that's way things are and many of us don't have $600 - $700 to spend on a single set of shelves or more to buy nicely crafted solid wood. This is papered and has a satin sheen for the finish, so I'd use coasters if you're going to set drinks or fresh flower vases on it. It looks really nice actually and quite like the real thing from not even too far a distance, I considered buying the lighter one vs. the espresso, trying to balance the colors in my living room, I already have a lot of dark pieces but, honestly I was afraid it would look more fake, maybe just my own personal worry? But I can't attest to it, since I didn't buy it. I do love the espresso color! All in all, I'm pretty happy with my purchase, it's pretty sturdy, and I love the style, it's exactly what I was looking for and spent a fair amount of time searching for that style and size of shelf, there weren't many to be found. It turned out that it was the same company and style 'suite' and color of the office furniture: desk and file cabinet that my husband purchased here also, earlier this year, his desk had a spot that was damaged, but he bought it "used' saved some money, and it's not really noticeable, so it didn't bother him. This furniture really is pretty sturdy, I think it went together pretty well, I don't remember if he had any problems or not - with misaligned holes, missing parts or what have you, we've bought a lot of this type of furniture over the years, so he's gotten quite adept at putting it together, so as with all these types of furniture we've learned to 'play' with the piece of it doesn't seem to fit, sometimes they mislabel the piece 'saying this side up, when it ends up fitting that side down' of course that doesn't work if all sides aren't finished, but at least in the case of this shelf, and office furniture, I believe? all sides are completely finished, even the back, which gives it a nice professional look. With his drawers- in case anyone is interested, the glides are better than we would've expected, not grade A, but still really pretty good! And could definitely hold a good amount of weight, giving a pretty smooth gliding operation. I'd have to say this furniture has exceeded my, our expectations for papered mdf, from the experiences we've had in the past, just don't expect a solid wood piece, look at it for what it is, and from that standpoint it's pretty impressive. I think this manufacturer has done a job well done at perfecting this type of furniture: I would've expected unfinished sides, edges and back, just because that's what we've had to deal with in the past, and a more fake look, but that's not the case here. Like I said it doesn't disappoint as for the appearance of real wood, from a closer distance, it's not rickety, it seems to me that it holds a good deal of weight as advertised - but I haven't actually tried to put that to the test, I just put the things I wanted to put on it without thinking or worrying about the weight, and suffered no issues, no awful smell. So for me, us, this furniture has exceeded our expectations, it has served us for the purposes we've bought them for without issue so far and we have no real reason to believe that will change... and just to let you know: all pieces were bought separately, we tried to purchase the desk and file cabinet at the same time, but the file cabinet wasn't available at the same time as the desk, so he waited for a month or two for the the file cabinet, and my shelf was purchased months later, so there is consistency in quality and I find that important to me and something I look for when researching my purchases. We're happy for having bought these pieces and I hope this review helps others in making a decision, as I rely on the reviews of others to make my own. So as a note this is my own personal review, and was meant to help others with as many of the important details we all look for as I could think of and to thank other reviewers for their thoughtful reviews and of course to give credit where credit is due as for the quality. One last note, many of us, myself included like to support our own manufacturers in the U.S... it wasn't made in the USA, I remember that, but I don't remember where it was made and I can't find the box, Sorry! Read more
