****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Very happy with the result! It’s unique compared to many plain rectangular coffee tables.I’m an old hand at assembling flat-pack furniture, and I’m used to doing it on my own. This piece had well-labeled pieces and DECENT instructions, but not superb.I laid out all the pieces, verified that I had everything, and got going. All alone, it took me about four hours, which were mostly seamless… just pop on some podcasts and follow step by step. This may seem like a lot but I was taking my time and doing it alone. It was mostly straightforward and simple.Toward the end, it got a lot more difficult, partly due to being just one person and partly due to insufficient instructions:Firstly, I had to break apart some of the foam that packed it, to hold pieces up and in place and flush while I screwed them in. Without using the foam in this way, which did get a little painstaking and mildly frustrating, assembly as one person would have been simply impossible.I do not recommend doing this without an Allan wrench that has a more substantial handle… if you only use the little standard key that’s included, your hand will be sore and it will take you even longer.Secondly, once I thought I had finished, I was horribly disappointed to see that it appeared an ugly series of screws were exposed and wouldn’t tighten enough (see pictures).Thankfully, as I said, I’m relatively experienced with looking over these type of assemblies, and I was able to see where I had gone wrong (despite following instructions) and could make some adjustments that weren’t specified in the instructions. I loosened some of the other screws and slid the pieces closer together, then tightened them again, so that everything was flush and perfect.I have to give it credit that, unlike a lot of pieces of this quality of furniture, undoing the bolts didn’t harm the furniture/putting the pieces in the wrong places didn’t break through any of the surfaces.However, it was a pain in the neck (again, especially as one person, with little T-Rex length arms ?) and I do wish there had been a little bit of supplementary language on the directions to prevent this extra effort: it’s just images, which is mostly fine until you encounter these sorts of problems.My advice is to leave all of the areas where there is a rectangular slot for bolts—rather than just holes—very loosely connected until the end. That way you can slide the pieces around to fit against one another without undoing everything. I thought I had left the loose enough to slide around but clearly I had not as I wind up having to redo several steps to smush everything into place and then tighten.My other piece of advice if you are a solo assembler is to assemble it where you mean it to remain.This thing is heavy.It gets tons of compliments and looks much more expensive than it was. The faux-marble is subtle and not obnoxious the way some can be. All edges that aren’t surrounded by metal have a nice bevel.When I first got it, it seemed very fragile on the surfaces, and I was afraid to let my cats walk on it or to put my feet against it, but over time is has held up and I’ve felt comfortable to relax, as it hasn’t taken any damage yet from a few weeks of constant use.Wipes clean easily but definitely don’t let any sort of standing beverage accumulate condensation on it.., it does have a nice matte coating, but I wouldn’t test it.Overall a nice piece. Folks are very surprised when I say it’s from Amazon as they see the complexity and uniqueness of the design and assume it was from one of the mid-tier furniture stores like Crate & Barrel.
