I'm not sure why this product has an overall decent rating. We used this shelf as a bookcase. I assumed since bookcase is in the name of the item, it could be used as such. We filled it with books and the same day saw all the shelves starting to sag. Within a week the shelves were sagging about an inch. I wouldn't recommend buying this if you plan on using it for a bookcase. Unfortunately, it's more work to disassemble it and find another box to return it in than buying wood, cutting it to size and painting it.
This bookshelf is serving as a backup in our office, since the main one in our living room was starting to overflow. It's a great product if you know what you're getting yourself into. It's not wood; it's laminated particle board. It requires assembly, which is easy because the directions are specific, and all of the pieces are labeled. As one who has assembled many pieces of furniture, this is always so helpful. The color on this piece is great (I have the dark brown). I can't say that I would make this my primary bookshelf, but in an office space, it's fine. It holds a lot! It really is a great piece for the price.
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Though these shelves are, in fact, made of thick particle board with laminate, they are sturdy enough to hold a reasonable number of books with no difficulty. Assembling can be a little frustrating, and, as the instructions let you know, definitely does require two people. The shelves are deep and hold large books well and the shelves themselves can be adjusted to provide greater height for the larger books of your collection.
Some advantages:
1) The shelf looks fantastic once it's all put together and serves its purpose well.
2) It's a good sized bookcase with relatively deep shelves and is especially great at holding larger books for this reason.
My biggest complaints really are these:
1) With the exception of the centre shelf, which is screwed in place by necessity, the two floating shelves are held in place by plastic nubs (four in total each, two per side). This is really no issue for collections of a predominately paperback nature, but where the heavier hardbacks come in, you might be biting your nails a bit. It WILL hold... but there's always that thought in your mind "for how long?" I'd've preferred metal nubs.
2) The two non-centre shelves really do feel as if they are not capable of carrying the same weight as the centre shelf and because of the plastic clips holding them in place, I feel leery of putting any of my heavier reads on anything but the centre shelf, which makes for some awkward book arrangement. Also, the backing of the bookcase is very thin just barely more durable that cardboard. That said, you can only expect so much for such a low pricetag. For the US$60 I spent on this, I really can't complain all that much about the build quality. It's more than reasonable for the price.
3. The shelves come in pieces from the vendor. It would appear that the producer of the product doesn't really care too much about sawdust, because the pieces were covered in them. I had to take a dry wash-cloth to the boards to free them of their dusty blight. If you have allergies to dust or sawdust, you might be sneezing for a few hours after assembly.
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Rich vibrant deep pure black which makes it look real elegant. Comes with a 5 year warranty and customer service is great and helpful. The price with free shipping from amazon how can it be too expensive? This is my second shelf from south shore, i bought the 3 shelf one a while back. The packaging is solid and the design does pay attention to details like thick front panels top and bottom and black caps to seal off visable screw holes makes it look more elegant.
Oh almost forgot, my 3 tier shelf did started sagging just a tad bit with only heavier books, but not a big deal since the shelves are meant to work on both sides i just flipped it over and it'll straight itself out! i didn't expect real wood at this price.
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First off, be warned that the box will be *very* heavy. If you need to carry this a distance or up flights of stairs, you will almost definitely need someone to help you.
The packaging was very secure, and all of the small screws and things were separated nicely in a bag. Several of the pieces that were supposed to be labeled were not, so I had to guess which was which, but it turned out fine.
The instructions were very easy to follow, and assembly should not actually require more than one person, but I got my brother to help to be sure I didn't mess anything up it's something I would do.
I can definitely see that some of the other reviews are right in saying the shelves sag very easily. I bought this as a display case for some trinkets and figures though, so I wasn't concerned about it.
I rated it a four just for some minor gripes, and since I didn't want to blow hundreds of dollars for a nice bookshelf, I think I got what I paid for.
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First, the above poster's comments are not correct, the item does not cost more to ship than the bookcase costs (shipping was around $65). The item was ordered on 6/12 and it arrived at my house on 6/23, so delivery was faster than expected. It came in 2 boxes, one really large box weighing 70 pounds, and a smaller box that just contained the smaller spacer shelves.
