Looks nice in the end, damaged in shipping and assembly is a huge pain
So most reviews already discuss the pain this is to assemble. They do not exaggerate. Ive assembled a lot of furniture in my life and these were high on the list of painful assemblies (not the worst - but really not good). We ordered 2 of these desks and it took us 3 hours to assemble the first one and 1 hr 45 minutes for the second one. I would not attempt to do this without at least 2 people - and better with 3. The instructions are accurate - but really not the easiest things to read or decipher. It would help if the drawer slider parts were marked separately instead of requiring you to try to match a drawing to the item. I cant believe you have to actually assemble the drawer itself - it would have been a lot more reasonable to have this thing partially assembled and just to have you put the legs on. But no - the entire desk needs to be assembled. Further - these boxes are HEAVY. The UPS delivery guy seemed to have no problem but my husband struggled, and there was NO WAY that I could have lifted that by myself so keep that in mind for delivery. I think because they are so heavy they are dropped a lot in shipping. We had one desk that was okay, but the other desk had damaged corners to 2 of the pieces. By pure luck the areas that were damaged are not highly visible - but it could have been a front corner and honestly by the time you haul this heavy box wherever it is going and open it up to assemble it - it would be impossible to repackage it and haul it somewhere to ship it back - so you really are rolling the dice that you are going to get a good one. I did see there had been an option to choose to have someone come to assemble it for you. I dont know how good that would be but might be worth considering. Not sure if the pain of waiting around for a stranger to come into your house and watch them for hours would be any better. Also not sure what THEY would do if the part is damaged - would they deal with returning the damaged package and come back when the new one arrived? I have to say UPS delivery man was super nice, seemed to handle it with care, and nicely put it inside my door and didnt just drop it outside. Finished product looks very nice for the price. Looks about the same as pictured - no real surprises there. It is a bit odd that the large drawer is actually a front for two separate drawers. Maybe it was just too large an expanse to have one large drawer - I am guessing the cardboard bottoms would probably collapse over that span... but it is just odd and would be more functional if you had one large drawer. Improvements would be (a) more solid drawer bottom (b) more clear labeling on slider parts and possibly better or even just larger drawings on the instructions (c) have the entire top part of the desk already assembled and just require the legs to be attached and (d) more solid packaging so corners are not damaged in shipping.
Looks nice in the end, damaged in shipping and assembly is a huge pain
So most reviews already discuss the pain this is to assemble. They do not exaggerate. Ive assembled a lot of furniture in my life and these were high on the list of painful assemblies (not the worst - but really not good). We ordered 2 of these desks and it took us 3 hours to assemble the first one and 1 hr 45 minutes for the second one. I would not attempt to do this without at least 2 people - and better with 3. The instructions are accurate - but really not the easiest things to read or decipher. It would help if the drawer slider parts were marked separately instead of requiring you to try to match a drawing to the item. I cant believe you have to actually assemble the drawer itself - it would have been a lot more reasonable to have this thing partially assembled and just to have you put the legs on. But no - the entire desk needs to be assembled. Further - these boxes are HEAVY. The UPS delivery guy seemed to have no problem but my husband struggled, and there was NO WAY that I could have lifted that by myself so keep that in mind for delivery. I think because they are so heavy they are dropped a lot in shipping. We had one desk that was okay, but the other desk had damaged corners to 2 of the pieces. By pure luck the areas that were damaged are not highly visible - but it could have been a front corner and honestly by the time you haul this heavy box wherever it is going and open it up to assemble it - it would be impossible to repackage it and haul it somewhere to ship it back - so you really are rolling the dice that you are going to get a good one. I did see there had been an option to choose to have someone come to assemble it for you. I dont know how good that would be but might be worth considering. Not sure if the pain of waiting around for a stranger to come into your house and watch them for hours would be any better. Also not sure what THEY would do if the part is damaged - would they deal with returning the damaged package and come back when the new one arrived? I have to say UPS delivery man was super nice, seemed to handle it with care, and nicely put it inside my door and didnt just drop it outside. Finished product looks very nice for the price. Looks about the same as pictured - no real surprises there. It is a bit odd that the large drawer is actually a front for two separate drawers. Maybe it was just too large an expanse to have one large drawer - I am guessing the cardboard bottoms would probably collapse over that span... but it is just odd and would be more functional if you had one large drawer. Improvements would be (a) more solid drawer bottom (b) more clear labeling on slider parts and possibly better or even just larger drawings on the instructions (c) have the entire top part of the desk already assembled and just require the legs to be attached and (d) more solid packaging so corners are not damaged in shipping.