I put this dresser together this weekend for my new son and I have to say that I'm impressed with two things. The first is the overengineering of it. The drawers are double reinforced so they can hold a bunch of weight, but more importantly don't have a weak spot where the bottom of the drawer starts to sag with some weight. The slide rails are well done and include a cam that can adjust the rails so the front drawer face can be squared up. Most flat-packed furniture have a flimsy piece of cardboard for a backing. This, too, has cardboard, but has additional supports to strengthen it vertically.
The second thing that impressed me was the instruction manual. Usually these feel like an afterthought and usually resemble some sort of magic spell book and not the technical manual they need to be. It took me 3 1/2 hours to assemble this, which is between the 3 and 4 hours the instruction book suggests. The book paid real attention to detail. The written instructions were clear without being superfluous. They gave clear warning about jumping the gun and not doing something that needed to wait until later (i.e. tighten a cam). The illustrated instructions were even better. Absolute attention to detail and scale. Cams and dowels were clearly drawn. Directions of piece was clearly shown. Even including key details like which side, finished or unfinished, needed to face which direction. I only had to redo 1 step of of the 17 and that was because I got hasty and didn't read the step all the way to the end.
As my son gets older, we'll be looking to Sauder furniture as our first choice.
Sidenote on hardware: They give you plenty. I had a bunch leftover and the instruction manual was great because it said, "You will have leftover hardware. That's fine. We give you extra." Also, I had one drawer pull that was defective and I went to the Sauder website and they replaced it no questions asked.As product is very heavy to life we opened it up on our deck/porch and removed the pieces one by one to make sure no chipping or damage would occur by myself... make sure you take your time and read the instructions and lay out all the pieces with easy access to... it says not to use a drill screwdriver but I did and set it to a low setting to not over screw the screws etc... takes some time to complete.. it took me around 5 hours to finsh at a double check rate.. I was not going to rush this one...
very sturdy when finished and looks pretty decent for the price.. it does not look cheap like most flat pack sets do... we ended up buying a filing cabinet from the same company and intend to switch our cheap looking tv stand for another one of these dressers as it would look good with the original. we plan to move soon so all three products would be used within our study room...well built and well worth the money.
Buy Shoal Creek Six Drawer Dresser Now
After reading reviews, I thought this would be a great dresser for my situation. Unfortunately, it has really turned out to be a disappointment. To start, it is a bit frustrating to put together... The materials are terrible and some parts seem pointless. (The middle stabilizer beam on the drawers, anyone?) Whatever, the labor would be worth it if the dresser didn't look cheap, tacky and used. If I saw this sitting outside by the dumpster, I would question why someone bought it for their house in the first place. Trust me, the picture looks A LOT nicer. The white finish on mine is already fading along the edges. Too scared to touch it up because I'm not sure I can find something low quality enough to match. Also, the dresser drawers have cracks between them not very pretty looking.To be fair, the dresser holds clothes which is better than nothing.
Overall, wish I had splurged and spent $100 more to get a solid wood dresser at the furniture place down the street. After paying the $60 or so dollars for shipping (that took 2-3 weeks to come), the price REALLY is not worth it.
Read Best Reviews of Shoal Creek Six Drawer Dresser Here
I wanted an inexpensive dresser solution for a lightly-used guest bedroom and for this purpose the Shoal Creek dresser fits the bill perfectly. Good storage space in the drawers, very nice rails will give you that nice smooth drawer action, the compressed wood does have some good "heft" to it, the narrow profile is great for those with space limitations. Overall, a very good buy for barely over $200---but remember, you are buying a $200 dresser so keep your expectations in line with pricing.The laminate color is dark chocolate but the silver drawer handles are not the best option as the contrast is perhaps too extreme; brass-colored or a darker color may look better if you want to experiment and replace them. Thinking of putting this in a child's bedroom? Don't do it! The laminate will dent and scratch real fast in the hands of a youngster. This is already apparent as I can see very faint discoloration on some edge lines although this can be corrected with dark brown permanent markers if done carefully.
The top row looks like four individual jewelry drawers but this is a 6 drawer dresser, so I was a little disappointed this was not mentioned. It took me about 5 hours to put this together at a leisurely pace, just need a screwdriver and occasional light tapping with a hammer. Instructions were easy to follow but at times confusing, study the diagrams carefully to match and align pieces accurately; don't rush it and you should be okay. As long as you don't normally abuse dressers then this attractive piece should last for years, it's a pretty good budget buy for the cost-conscious amongst us. I just finished putting this piece together, and while it was a 2 day project, the finished product is fantastic. It shipped very quickly and arrived in perfect condition. There were a ton of pieces, and it took me about half an hour to get everything sorted out and organized. Most of the pieces were clearly labeled, however, I had to do some detective work for the drawer pieces and the cabinet rails, which was time consuming and inconvenient. The instructions are very detailed, and anything that is not labeled can be discerned from looking at the picture of the parts. Putting the frame together was a piece of cake; It took me about two hours. The frustrating part was the drawers. After spending too much time trying to figure out which parts were what, it took me about half an hour to get the first one assembled. Once I finished, the rest were easy. I too had the issue of the drawers not being flush with the frame when I tried to install them. They seemed to be getting caught on something. After more detective work, I realized that it was because not all of my screws holding the rails in place were flush with the frame. Maybe this is common knowledge, but I had to work a little to figure it out. Once I fixed that, after a little fine tuning the drawers were perfect. This might not sound like a glowing review, but the finished product was well worth any hassle I experienced. It is so solid, and while there were a ton of parts, they all added up to making it super stable. The drawers are reinforced and can easily hold the recommended weight without any problems. It looks exactly like the picture does, and I am thrilled with my new dresser!
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