Fantastic Adirondack for a fantastic price, but not perfect.
This is an aming deal when you get down to it. About 50 for a wooden adirondack??? Yup. How do they do it? They cut out some of the labor and pass that on to the customer in savings. Please note, you will have to assemble these chairs yourself. But if youre like me, building things is kind of fun. Let me give you some background about me so you understand where this review is coming from. I am a pediatrician. I am not very mechanical. But I found that with a little common sense, time and the right tools, this was relatively easy to assemble and fun.
First, the building phase. I would highly recommend a power drill, a socket wrench with a 13mm lug, and a philips screwdriver (preferable a ratcheting screwdriver if you have one). They will give you all the hardware you need, but not tools except for a small wrench, which I never used. I would also highly recommend sorting out all the parts into groups by the letters that are stamped on the wood. Initially, it is hard to see what goes where, but after you build the first one, it makes alot of sense, and you will be putting together the remaining chairs in no time. Follow the directions the first time, and look very, very closely at them so you dont screw something in the wrong way. The slats have conveniently predrilled holes and the base pieces have small holes that serve as guides. I found that sometimes things didnt line up quite right, but no worries, everything assembled just fine. One minor complaint I have is that the where the guiding holes are on the armrests dont allow for a graceful folding of the chairs, so after the first one, I bolted the armrests in a position of my choosing which worked out just fine. The first chair took me about 2h to build. The second chair took me an hour, and the last 2 took about 30min each. Dont be intimidated by having to put this together. These guys took most of the guess work out making it easy for you.
The end product is I have 4 beautiful chairs, they are sturdy when I sit on them, and they fold beautifully. They are not the heaviest adirondacks Ive seen, but they have a good weight behind them. A young adolescent could lift, but a smaller child might not be able to. When they fold, they are still rather big, but it is a nice feature if you want to move them around.
Bottom line, these are nice looking chairs, high quality, and the price is hard to beat. If you are willing to do the work of assembling them, and have the proper tools, I highly recommend these chairs. I would warn anyone that thinks they can do this without a drill to think twice. They provide self driving wood screws and you can drive them in with a screwdriver, but there are probably 50 or so screws per chair your arm will get tired! Buy this chair, and feel good about the price!
Update 6/12/16: still pretty happy with the chairs, but have noted they are not quite as sturdy after a few parties. Im a slender, shorter fellow so these chairs are perfect for me, however my friends are a little bigger than average and Ive noted these chairs may not hold up with heavy use. For the price, Im still happy, but in the future I might shell out extra money for more durable and sturdier chairs.
Fantastic Adirondack for a fantastic price, but not perfect.
This is an aming deal when you get down to it. About 50 for a wooden adirondack??? Yup. How do they do it? They cut out some of the labor and pass that on to the customer in savings. Please note, you will have to assemble these chairs yourself. But if youre like me, building things is kind of fun. Let me give you some background about me so you understand where this review is coming from. I am a pediatrician. I am not very mechanical. But I found that with a little common sense, time and the right tools, this was relatively easy to assemble and fun. First, the building phase. I would highly recommend a power drill, a socket wrench with a 13mm lug, and a philips screwdriver (preferable a ratcheting screwdriver if you have one). They will give you all the hardware you need, but not tools except for a small wrench, which I never used. I would also highly recommend sorting out all the parts into groups by the letters that are stamped on the wood. Initially, it is hard to see what goes where, but after you build the first one, it makes alot of sense, and you will be putting together the remaining chairs in no time. Follow the directions the first time, and look very, very closely at them so you dont screw something in the wrong way. The slats have conveniently predrilled holes and the base pieces have small holes that serve as guides. I found that sometimes things didnt line up quite right, but no worries, everything assembled just fine. One minor complaint I have is that the where the guiding holes are on the armrests dont allow for a graceful folding of the chairs, so after the first one, I bolted the armrests in a position of my choosing which worked out just fine. The first chair took me about 2h to build. The second chair took me an hour, and the last 2 took about 30min each. Dont be intimidated by having to put this together. These guys took most of the guess work out making it easy for you. The end product is I have 4 beautiful chairs, they are sturdy when I sit on them, and they fold beautifully. They are not the heaviest adirondacks Ive seen, but they have a good weight behind them. A young adolescent could lift, but a smaller child might not be able to. When they fold, they are still rather big, but it is a nice feature if you want to move them around. Bottom line, these are nice looking chairs, high quality, and the price is hard to beat. If you are willing to do the work of assembling them, and have the proper tools, I highly recommend these chairs. I would warn anyone that thinks they can do this without a drill to think twice. They provide self driving wood screws and you can drive them in with a screwdriver, but there are probably 50 or so screws per chair your arm will get tired! Buy this chair, and feel good about the price! Update 6/12/16: still pretty happy with the chairs, but have noted they are not quite as sturdy after a few parties. Im a slender, shorter fellow so these chairs are perfect for me, however my friends are a little bigger than average and Ive noted these chairs may not hold up with heavy use. For the price, Im still happy, but in the future I might shell out extra money for more durable and sturdier chairs.