Winsome Mission Beech Wood 4-Tier Shelf, Natural

I have a few of these folding book cases in our kids' rooms in various sizes and heights from different vendors but same finish. They are sturdy and work very well.After scouring the web for a tallish portable bookcase these were the best match to what we have and needs and the best price.The reviews were varied and mixed but I needed them ASAP, so I crossed my fingers, and knowing I was buying from Amazon - the return would be easier. I purchased two.Amazon delivered them promptly. When they arrived my 19 y.o. daughter, who was home alone, assembled them, set them up, and filled them up with books and knick knacks herself - no problems.Which means all the parts were there, including the hex wrenches. The instructions were easy to understand. The set up was easy - the pieces fit as they should. And the best part, the bookcases can be folded up flat for easy moving in the future! What more can you ask for?The wood finish and quality are great for the price and does not look cheap. Should I need more I would certainly buy these again.

I am no pro, but I would say that I have better than average skills at this sort of thing. Still, I did not laugh off the possible difficulty or the fact that it is recommended to have a helper. However, being alone and wanting to begin, I put the first of four together alone. As my title says, it was difficult and tedious. This is not to say that the way they are not designed you are not almost guaranteed to get a good job...once you get it done. It took me about an hour and a half although the first is always slower. I have some general ideas on how to do better, but I don't expect to fly through the others. In fact, I dread three more repetitions. There really is no great way around the tediousness of this assembly unless you have elaborate factory jigs. A second person would be a big help in some places and very little help in other places. And you might have a fight in your frustration!I took a star away from this nice, quality product, because I feel that it should be shipped fully assembled. These things fold quite flat even with the top shelf design which is a little unusual for this sort of folding bookcase. I cannot imagine that shipping a container full of them from Asia would cost any more if they were assembled. OTOH, the larger, flatter package would be a bit more difficult to handle one-at-a-time in a fulfillment center and might cost a bit more to ship to the consumer. I'd consider it a bargain to pay ten or fifteen bucks more and have it pre-assembled although that is with hindsight. If I were in shopping mode, I might not see that an assembled one was worth much more than one I would assemble. If it had come in pre-assembled, I'd be trying to give it six stars!Update: Well, I have them all assembled and am so pleased and proud of myself that I have ordered two more to do a 3x2 double-stack. Obviously I have tested stacking them, and it looks real solid. I am also upgrading my star rating from 4 to 5 stars. I still think it would be nicer if the factory did this work for us, but once you have two or three of them under your belt, it is no problem. In fact, it becomes a pleasurable task really requiring only 30 to 45 minutes. IMO, a helper is entirely superfluous.I want to offer a couple of tips learned the hard way.#1 - Ignore the instruction not to tighten the screws until after you have the shelves in place. This instruction is exactly half wrong and the half is important, at least the way I did it. Working on a table or on the floor, mount the three back rails into one of the preassembled sides and fully tighten the screws. Insert the dowels into the other side piece, stick your new bookcase together, and STAND IT UP on the floor. (Best on carpet where things don't slide around.) At this point, the side with the fully tightened screws is stable, and you are holding the other side which is just resting on its loose dowels. Now put the screws into the second side just far enough to bite into the ends of the three rails. Now it is stable, although flimsy, which is necessary to allow you to fit the top into place with its protruding dowels. With the top in place, you can tightened all the loose screws a couple of turns to improve stability. Then insert the shelves starting with the bottom shelf to keep each shelf out of your way as you install the next one. Now you can tighten all the screws, but don't over tighten...just get them snug.#2 - You'll need to contrive some way to hold the washers in place, which can be a nasty problem. I worked this out with a product called Scotch Mounting Puddy, which is available here at Amazon. But since you only need a bit of it, you might want to pick up the smallest and cheapest pack locally at a hardware store or (like me) at an office supply superstore. Right at the beginning (before my step #1 really), I take each of the three rails in hand and stick the washers in place using tiny bits of the putty. Two possible approaches: either put a film of putty larger than the holes over them, or, alternatively, just put three or four bits of putty around the hole and stick the the washers in place. If you cover the hole, you should take a screw and punch through from the washer side cleaning out the putty directly over the hole. If you don't do this, when you insert the screw from the other side, it will tend to push the putty along with the washer out of position. No big deal, really. We're just trying to keep the washers in place for final assembly, something that is nearly impossible without some adhesive. Double-sided tape might work well. Or chewing gum! Maybe super glue...not sure, but if you have some around, might as well give it a try. If you feel the need to clean up any visible putty after assembly, you need nothing more than a pen knife or your fingernail.# 3 - This was supposed to be the assembly phase, but I see that I already covered that at #1. I suggest that before you start, you take the parts in your hands where you expect to work and do a kind of dry run. (It is not the same as a mental dry run sitting in your chair!)I hope this is helpful. Since it is really only the first one that is kind of difficult, I have tried to share what I learned doing four of them (with two more shipping today).

Yes, indeed, assembly is required. The two sides, three back braces, three shelves, and top are all separate pieces. So, you get a nine-piece puzzle, along with the screws and pegs that hold it all together, and a little hex key, aka an Allen wrench. As puzzles go it's fairly straightforward. The assembly instructions are clear and well illustrated, and should be followed in the order they're presented. Lay everything out on the carpet and figure out how things fit together before beginning. You'll probably need a bit of coarse sandpaper to very slightly taper one-half the length of each of 8 wooden pegs before inserting them into each end of the back braces and top. That will be your first step. After that I found that things went together for me quite easily, taking less than an hour, though I admittedly have a knack for putting things together. Some people might want or require some assistance. You'll want to have the entire thing loosely assembled and set up on its feet before finally tightening down the screws in stages. (Putting the screws only part-way into the back braces when you begin assembly is essential to getting the washers on the shelves' pivot screws in the next step. If you tighten things up fully right from the start, this will prove impossible. Tightening everything fully is the very last step.)This item is made of good material--dense tropical wood--and the factory work and drilling was precisely done. I'm quite happy with the quality. It's attractive and sturdy--structurally up to holding as many books as you can fit on it. I'm sure you could have safely loaded it up with a full set of the old-style Encyclopedia Britannica. There's no composite budget wood involved in the making of this product. Once assembled, it easily folds and unfolds as needed. If it came out of the box that way I'm sure it would have cost a lot more.