This is a nice piece of furniture for the money. I have put my fair share of flat box furniture together in my time, and this bench is a step up. All but one of the pieces fit together perfectly. Only one required a bit of persuasion, but once I tightened the screws it was fine. This is real wood, and it has the weight and authority of a premade store bought piece. The bottom panel is not capable of bearing a lot of weight, so stay away from using this for heavy items unless you reinforce the bottom. You could probably cut a few pieces of ply wood if you really wanted to reinforce it.
The back of this is not that attractive, so placing it along a wall or against a couch is probably a good idea. Even though, it is not unattractive. It has two vertical vent slots for each of the cubbies in the bench to cut down on bag or shoe smell. The lid has a little gap to allow for little fingers to not get smashed. The soft close requries some force to push it down, so do not fear that this might fall on hands or worse yet a head. Time will tell how the soft close arms last.
This took me one hour to unbox and build. I used a drill and a screwdriver. I glued all contact edges for an extra solid feel. I am pretty handy and spatially adept at following directions. If you are not strong in these areas, I would say this might take 90 minutes. You will probably need a helping hand to put the lid on. You could probably lay it on its side and get the job done solo however.
As far as the crack that people reported, mine did have a 4-5 inch crack on the back. I wasnt too concerned about it. This is just the price we pay for not paying a high in store price. I could see this running about 4–500 assembled in a store. You could probably get several sent to you with the same result.
The wood seems to hold up well so far, but being real wood, I imagine it will only be a matter of time before my kids have a go at it.
Do yourself a solid...
This is a nice piece of furniture for the money. I have put my fair share of flat box furniture together in my time, and this bench is a step up. All but one of the pieces fit together perfectly. Only one required a bit of persuasion, but once I tightened the screws it was fine. This is real wood, and it has the weight and authority of a premade store bought piece. The bottom panel is not capable of bearing a lot of weight, so stay away from using this for heavy items unless you reinforce the bottom. You could probably cut a few pieces of ply wood if you really wanted to reinforce it. The back of this is not that attractive, so placing it along a wall or against a couch is probably a good idea. Even though, it is not unattractive. It has two vertical vent slots for each of the cubbies in the bench to cut down on bag or shoe smell. The lid has a little gap to allow for little fingers to not get smashed. The soft close requries some force to push it down, so do not fear that this might fall on hands or worse yet a head. Time will tell how the soft close arms last. This took me one hour to unbox and build. I used a drill and a screwdriver. I glued all contact edges for an extra solid feel. I am pretty handy and spatially adept at following directions. If you are not strong in these areas, I would say this might take 90 minutes. You will probably need a helping hand to put the lid on. You could probably lay it on its side and get the job done solo however. As far as the crack that people reported, mine did have a 4-5 inch crack on the back. I wasnt too concerned about it. This is just the price we pay for not paying a high in store price. I could see this running about 4–500 assembled in a store. You could probably get several sent to you with the same result. The wood seems to hold up well so far, but being real wood, I imagine it will only be a matter of time before my kids have a go at it.