Paid full price for this, like absolute saps. If you're expecting solid wood for the price, think again. I hope you like low-grade MDF!
It gets better. It took months to arrive, and arrived with broken and water damaged parts. There are some really nice Wayfair customer service people on the phone (when you employ all of your detective skills to hunt down the number) but confused and illogical systems made the replacement parts process a real challenge. It took more months for replacement parts to arrive. Too many phantom deliveries, and real (but unnecessary) collections were booked. Wasted days taken off work. Different opinions on how "possible" it is to get partial refunds. Most think it's impossible. It isn't. Of course it isn't. Wayfair don't have a one-way bank account.
Finally, a few seasons later, with all parts to hand, construction can continue. If you enjoy construction - the fun of building things - the challenge of being organised and efficient - the pride in watching the project pass milestones, then I'm sorry. You'll hate this.
It's like the construction design and manual writing was done by a person or persons with no experience of the real world. An artificial intelligence that was only 90% programmed. Somebody who's maybe heard about screwdrivers, hammers, wood, etc, but never actually seen any of them, yet.
The materials selected for this project are remarkable, and not in a positive sense. Sometimes the packing materials used felt like higher quality choices. The logic in the build process makes me deeply concerned about the mental well-being of the design team. Example: to follow their instructions to the letter, during this build, you'll end up having to lift and flip this piece of furniture more times than if it had accidentally fell down a mountain (you may have daydreams about this happening).
Strange and baffling choices are presented to you with the turn of every fresh instructional page. Fancy measuring and drilling your own holes, instead of them being prepared in the factory where other holes are measured and drilled? You're in luck. That's part of the guide and assembly. Have an intense desire to crawl around on the back of a face-down cupboard, hammering 147 pig iron nails into the most medium of medium-desnisty fibrewood? You'll love it. Sick to death of knowing which part is which in a flat-pack build because they're clearly labelled and distinct? You're in for a treat.
This build was genuinely one of the most interesting two-day construction efforts I've worked on. Not because it's particular terrible (it was), but honestly because it was so strange. Try it, if you want. Like me, though, you may have to wait a while before writing your review - lest you accidentally fill it with expletives about the design team.
With all that said, it works. Once built, it actually works. You'll wonder how for a while. It looks good and works. Fair enough. For the money though, we could have had a good carpenter come in and build us a solid wood bookcase instead, and he likely would have been quicker than the six (?) or so months.
P.s. saw the mention of a drill and that puts you off? Don't worry. The materials are of such quality that you can just push a screwdriver through, instead of getting the drill out.
