A-minus for look and feel, C for engineering, decent deal for the price
I just bought a house and was accordingly cash-poor, but needed a new bed and wanted to buy something I would be happy with for a few years before I decided to invest time and money into higher-end furniture. This bed seemed like a good compromise and I would probably consider buying it again in the same situation.
Delivery people were on time and carried the bed up to my 3rd-floor unit no problem. The main box was pretty beat up, but there were no scratches or other damage to the wood, so good job on packaging there.
Assembly was more irritating that it needed to be and there were a number of unfortunate engineering decisions:
- trying to mount the central support beam under the slats after they had been laid was cumbersome and frustrating. It really should connect to the frame, not just the slates.
- the outer frame is held together only by L-braces, which makes it difficult to square properly. Furthermore, the screws in the outer frame are somewhat obstructed by the slats, so tightening down after laying the slats to square the frame doesnt really work
- the legs under the central support beam are poorly connected: the anchors all pulled out causing the legs to fall off and the bed to partially collapse while I was...practicing my advanced partner yoga. The instructions did warn against over-tightening, which was probably the reason they ripped out, but there was no clear way to tell what over-tightening entailed. If they had used a 30-cent anchor instead of a 10-cent anchor, this would not be a problem. I fixed it with some wood screws to mount the legs to the beam, which seems to hold up just fine.
All things considered, I felt like a craftsman could have done a much better job engineering this piece and the result would only have been a marginal increase in the cost of the materials with considerably simplified setup and a sturdier product.
That said, the final product is decent after a bit of love. It looks good, it feels reasonably solid, and the price is pretty fair for something with a bit of style. And I do like the fact that buying matching bedroom furniture is easy.
A-minus for look and feel, C for engineering, decent deal for the price
I just bought a house and was accordingly cash-poor, but needed a new bed and wanted to buy something I would be happy with for a few years before I decided to invest time and money into higher-end furniture. This bed seemed like a good compromise and I would probably consider buying it again in the same situation. Delivery people were on time and carried the bed up to my 3rd-floor unit no problem. The main box was pretty beat up, but there were no scratches or other damage to the wood, so good job on packaging there. Assembly was more irritating that it needed to be and there were a number of unfortunate engineering decisions: - trying to mount the central support beam under the slats after they had been laid was cumbersome and frustrating. It really should connect to the frame, not just the slates. - the outer frame is held together only by L-braces, which makes it difficult to square properly. Furthermore, the screws in the outer frame are somewhat obstructed by the slats, so tightening down after laying the slats to square the frame doesnt really work - the legs under the central support beam are poorly connected: the anchors all pulled out causing the legs to fall off and the bed to partially collapse while I was...practicing my advanced partner yoga. The instructions did warn against over-tightening, which was probably the reason they ripped out, but there was no clear way to tell what over-tightening entailed. If they had used a 30-cent anchor instead of a 10-cent anchor, this would not be a problem. I fixed it with some wood screws to mount the legs to the beam, which seems to hold up just fine. All things considered, I felt like a craftsman could have done a much better job engineering this piece and the result would only have been a marginal increase in the cost of the materials with considerably simplified setup and a sturdier product. That said, the final product is decent after a bit of love. It looks good, it feels reasonably solid, and the price is pretty fair for something with a bit of style. And I do like the fact that buying matching bedroom furniture is easy.