I bought two of these at the same time (Feb 2019). These are solid wood (they are *not* composite with veneer). The finish is good and the color is mostly dark brown but with reddish hues.
The style is simple but elegant. My wife likes them too. They are not fancy, but I think they are surprisingly good quality for the price I paid (47.59 each). They go quite well with the Pottery Barn Benchwright furniture that we have.
For pre/pack furniture, these really exceeded my expectations. They even come with little round soft pads for the bottom of the feet so they dont scratch your floor.
The instructions and assembly would have been very simple. if it were not for the manufacturing defects that I had to fix.
Heres my attempt to describe the problem and how I fixed it:
The bottom shelf is a single piece of wood with four holes (lets call them tunnels) drilled from the edge inward. At the end of each tunnel is a cylindrical cutout that you put the cam into and then turn to lock onto the head of the metal pin that goes through the tunnel. Normally, you just screw one of the four metal pins into each of the legs and then slide the pin into one of the tunnels and put the cam onto the end of the pin (and turn to lock the cam). Easy/peasy. This is very standard for pre/pack some/assembly/required furniture.
Unfortunately, 3 of the 4 tunnels on one of my tables and 1 of the 4 tunnels on the other table were inaccurately drilled by about 1/16. That doesnt sound like a lot, but it meant that the pins were difficult to slide into the tunnels and were then pushed out of the correct alignment angle so that the cams wont slide over the head of the pins. Being somewhat handy, I just took a power drill with a 5/16 drill bit and widened the four incorrectly drilled tunnels in the right direction by 1/16. This was a little tricky because drill bits dont generally cut sideways very well, but I was able to slowly widen the tunnel in one direction with a little wiggling and perseverance. (PSA: Always wear eye protection when working with power tools.)
I wasnt certain this would produce a good result, but it did. The result turned out just as well as if there was no manufacturing defect. Now the pins go straight though the tunnels and I can lock the cams over the ends of the pins. With the cams tightened, the table is actually fairly sturdy. It feels like one solid piece, not wobbly.
Of course, I have no idea what the probability is that anyone else will encounter this problem, but my incidence of this problem was 100 (since I had the problem on 2 of the 2 tables I bought), so I thought Id explain how I solved it in case that helps someone else.
I would have given these a 5/star rating because the value for cost ratio seems very high to me, but Im docking a point for the manufacturing defects. Obviously, the manufacturer should improve their manufacturing process and quality control (apparently in Vietnam).
Really nice for the money, but I had to fix mine
I bought two of these at the same time (Feb 2019). These are solid wood (they are *not* composite with veneer). The finish is good and the color is mostly dark brown but with reddish hues. The style is simple but elegant. My wife likes them too. They are not fancy, but I think they are surprisingly good quality for the price I paid (47.59 each). They go quite well with the Pottery Barn Benchwright furniture that we have. For pre/pack furniture, these really exceeded my expectations. They even come with little round soft pads for the bottom of the feet so they dont scratch your floor. The instructions and assembly would have been very simple. if it were not for the manufacturing defects that I had to fix. Heres my attempt to describe the problem and how I fixed it: The bottom shelf is a single piece of wood with four holes (lets call them tunnels) drilled from the edge inward. At the end of each tunnel is a cylindrical cutout that you put the cam into and then turn to lock onto the head of the metal pin that goes through the tunnel. Normally, you just screw one of the four metal pins into each of the legs and then slide the pin into one of the tunnels and put the cam onto the end of the pin (and turn to lock the cam). Easy/peasy. This is very standard for pre/pack some/assembly/required furniture. Unfortunately, 3 of the 4 tunnels on one of my tables and 1 of the 4 tunnels on the other table were inaccurately drilled by about 1/16. That doesnt sound like a lot, but it meant that the pins were difficult to slide into the tunnels and were then pushed out of the correct alignment angle so that the cams wont slide over the head of the pins. Being somewhat handy, I just took a power drill with a 5/16 drill bit and widened the four incorrectly drilled tunnels in the right direction by 1/16. This was a little tricky because drill bits dont generally cut sideways very well, but I was able to slowly widen the tunnel in one direction with a little wiggling and perseverance. (PSA: Always wear eye protection when working with power tools.) I wasnt certain this would produce a good result, but it did. The result turned out just as well as if there was no manufacturing defect. Now the pins go straight though the tunnels and I can lock the cams over the ends of the pins. With the cams tightened, the table is actually fairly sturdy. It feels like one solid piece, not wobbly. Of course, I have no idea what the probability is that anyone else will encounter this problem, but my incidence of this problem was 100 (since I had the problem on 2 of the 2 tables I bought), so I thought Id explain how I solved it in case that helps someone else. I would have given these a 5/star rating because the value for cost ratio seems very high to me, but Im docking a point for the manufacturing defects. Obviously, the manufacturer should improve their manufacturing process and quality control (apparently in Vietnam).