Customer Reviews

Guidecraft Jr. Roll Top Desk - Natural

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

We bought this for our five-year old, who wanted a place to do "paperwork" and had outgrown his lap desk for projects. The design on this is very nice, very classy, and it ended up being a relatively solid piece of furniture. The rolltop really rolls, and the drawers have stoppers and open and close easily. It shows signs of not being overly durable in the long haul, but for a two-kid span it should be fine.

Some caveats, though. First, it's not oak - it's some tropical wood that's much softer and lighter than a hardwood traditionally used for furniture, lighter even than pine. (Made in China.) This cut down on the weight and made it easier to assemble and move around, so that may be a plus for some, but don't expect all that goes with traditional furniture wood (e.g. durability).

Second, and this is a big one, this had maybe the worst set of assembly instructions, ever. My wife and I are veterans of probably hundreds of flat-ship assemble-yourself pieces of furniture over the years (counting helping friends, etc.) and this was a real nadir as far as assembly. It's one of those "only four steps" instructions, where all the steps are heaped together. There's no explanation, just a diagram. It's unclear what order to do things in. It's very very unclear exactly what parts go where in some circumstances, because the diagrams were tiny. It was extremely difficult to read the parts labels in the diagram, and the parts list was incomplete (although as it turned out we had everything). We ended up out and out guessing where to put one part that had no guide holes for its screws, and also had to undo one step (one of the backing plates) as a result of having guessed wrong.

We're still giving this a high mark because it's a very tidy and nice-looking final product that fits our son's needs well, but if you're overly sensitive to possibly crazy-making assemblies, beware.

My son was very excited to get his new desk, but the construction is disappointing -- the slats of the rolltop are warped and only held together loosely by tape. We therefore are not able to raise or lower the top. Very disappointing!

Don't expect this to last throughout generations, but it's simple, lovely, useful and "just like Daddy's". I would purchase again.