Ameriwood Home London Hobby Desk in Espresso Finish - Compact Writing Desk for Small Spaces, Home Office, Study & Craft Room

This took 3 hrs to put together by myselfKnow exactly where you want to put it in your room and be careful moving it around I made the mistake of pushing it from the top and not the shelves lose, easy fix .The desk top isn’t as long as I would have like and the cubbies on the shelves are not as wide or deep as I was hoping forMy craft room isn’t very big so this hobby desk fits better in thereI probably envision things bigger than they are, my only complaint after assembling the desk is just that it's a bit smaller than expected. I've bought a few cube items over the last year and these cubes are not those sizes. It will work fine as a lego building station which is our intent, but if you are wanting a true cube piece check around.Kinda easy to put together. I did it alone. Pretty sturdyI bought two of these desks for our sons' bedrooms. The size is great, and the many shelves are awesome for their Lego creations and storage.But the assembly was insanely difficult. I ordered the desks at two different times. I remembered the first assembly being difficult, but I was happy with the final product so several months later when I saw the desk for half the price I paid for the original, enough time had passed for me and the price was low enough for me to forget exactly how difficult the first assembly was, and I ordered another desk for our other son.The assembly was way more difficult than I remembered. You are basically trying to attach the long side pieces to the crossing shelf pieces that are not interlocked and only held together by small dowels and a very small amount of wood glue, so everything is wobbling and not staying in place as you are trying to use the cam lock system. Like I said, a second set of hands may have been helpful, but maybe not, as it might just increase the frustration and anger in the room.If I remember correctly, you have to go through this process 3 times for the 3 different crossing shelves that are part of the desk.On the last part the process, I realized the instructions were completely counter-intuitive, tossed them and assembled the rest of the desk in a way that made more sense structurally, and the rest of the build was a little less stressful.Also, the desk has one piece that is suppose to have a hole drilled completely through for a dowel to go through to connect two of the small shelf pieces. In the second desk I purchased, this piece only had the hole drilled half way through. I emailed customer service requesting a replacement piece and never heard back from them. My husband drilled the hole completely through for me so that it could be used to finish assembling the desk.For anyone thinking maybe I'm just crappy at assembling furniture, I have previously assembled 4 of the cube storage systems you see all over the place by myself with no problem. Two of them had 8 cubes so they were rather large, and I had no complaints about the structure or assembly. The design of this desk is just subpar.I thought the tall part of the desk would have 1 long board on each side based on other cube systems I have bought and assembled, but instead it is two separate 4 cube systems stacked on top of each other, one upside down, without a 4th side securing it as you flip it upside down, so again wobbling all over the place.This is where I tossed the instructions and built from the bottom up, instead of trying to build a wobbly construction to then turn upside down.Anyway if you buy this desk, good luck. I hope you an easier time assembling it than I did.One panel had dowel holes drilled lower than the opposite side. Shelf is a bit off level and support panel could not be used with dowels. Had to use an L metal support to attach. If I were a bit more skilled I might have been able to drill the holes as they should have been. Overall it is not noticeable if you don’t know about it, otherwise a nice desk that may last thru school days, but certainly not a desk that will be handed on.You need two people to put this together. Good luck not getting into an argument or having a meltdown because this is the most difficult thing we've ever put together. Everything is individual pieces and the instructions are a legit mess.I love the shelf itself. Seems sturdy. It holds all my craft and art stuffThe pieces were not so much difficult to put together, as it was tedious. With a desk this style and size, that’s to be expected. However, the parts feel flimsier than IKEA furniture and it holds up about as well; using the wall secure is highly recommended! I’ve moved once since first putting it up, so it’s been taken apart and put back together. This is NOT recommended. After putting it back together again, it wobbles and sways more than it did when first put together.I ordered this desk because from the measurements, it would fit perfectly in a small space & provide lots of storage for all my craft supplies, which I can tell you does both! Although I must say that you get what you pay for. When my package arrived it was missing all of the hardware to put it together. I reached out to Ameriwood Customer Service & within 24 hours they had gotten back to me and was sending me out my complete replacement of the hardware. That was easy as pie! When the parts came, the wooden dowles were extremely small and don't hold together your pieces, even with the wood glue(I didn't use the wood glue that came with it, I used my Gorilla Glue for wood I had already for crafts) so be cautious when doing those and not to shove them all the way down. I also had to drill the pilot holes just a tiny bit to make them bigger so the screw would be able to fit correctly. All in all when the desk was put together, it was not very sturdy (even after letting the glue dry of course) so there was a quick trip to the hardware store and picked up these little metal brackets (included in my pictures.) With the brackets placed, this desk is now super sturdy and there is no wiggle or wobble! If you purchased this desk and there was no issue for you, awesome, although I would be prepared to do a little modification. I now love my desk (even with my little brackets) and use it every single day! After modifications were made, this desk went from 2.5/3 to 5 stars!!Poor assembly design and found defects on the main board so basically not usable . Wanted to return but I'd have to carry all boards from upstairs and repack it and mail it out and deal with the seller to track to get my money back, which is going to be a huge hassle . I will try to see if there's some other way to fix the holes but I'm extremely disappointed with this purchase and will definitely not recommend it to other people!Love the look and functionality of the desk. Putting it together was a pain in the butt and ran out of wood glue putting the first few pieces together but for the price, I don't mind going out and buying more glue!Purchased for our daughters (8) room, she loves arts and crafts. The storage cubes give the ability to organize, decorate and store things as it suits her needs.Fairly sturdy, easy to build .... looks good in my sons roomBeaucoup de rangement, très facile à monter. Super beau