Wooden Shoe Bench with Dark Brown Faux Leather Seat

The item was received quickly after it was ordered; that makes me feel a bit better about the shipping charge. As others have remarked, it is important to assemble the bench completely before tightening any of the bolts. I recommend assembling it, standing it upright, and then tightening the bolts; this will ensure that the feet are level. When completed, the bench seems to be sturdy and reasonable in appearance. However, there were some problems. Out of the box, one of the shelves was broken. An end piece had separated from the rest of the shelf. I applied glue and used a rubber mallet to hammer the end piece back onto the remainder of the shelf, being careful to align the exposed legs of the staple that was supposed to hold them together. This caused the base of the staple to back out of the endpiece slightly; allowing the mallet to scrape off a small piece of the finished wood. In addition, the same endpiece has a marred finish that looks as if a hot tool came into contact. In other parts, the finished is thin or speckled. None of these problems were severe enough to make me return the item, but they are severe enough that you might want to look for alternatives. If you are not handy with repairs, then consider this to be a one-star rating for your purposes.

It's true that the upholstery of the seat does not wrap all the way around three sides and into the under-side of the seat, but it's cut cleanly at the inner edge of the underside, no one but a very small dog or crawling toddler will ever see the cut edge, and it has enough upholstery staples holding it in place to resist anything short of a determined attempt with pliers to pull it loose. If that's the trade-off I have to make for a comfortable shoe bench with solid wood legs and shelves and a very comfortable and handsome seat at a decent price, I'll take it. The upper shelf holds my high top walking shoes and hiking boots, too.I would recommend that, if you're putting this together alone, you reverse the order of the directions, and put the legs onto the shelves before attaching the whole set-up to the seat. However you do it, definitely don't fully tighten the bolts until you have all the bolts set in the holes and a few turns in. Everything fits square once tightened, but there was a certain amount of fumbling around and muttering swear words with the last few bolts.

First, the box was poorly sealed. It arrived with the packing tape already separating from the box....so the box flaps were coming loose and I could easily insert my fingers between the tape and the box flaps. Luckily, nothing fell out during shipment.Second...the finish on the wood was uneven. Most was nice...but there were areas where the varnish didn't cover sufficiently and the wood didn't appear to be evenly sanded.Third...the upholstery cover was sloppily cut and was haphazardly stapled to the seat frame. It looks cheaply put together from the bottom. Luckily, I won't be looking at it from the bottom...but I wonder how long the upholstery will last before the cover starts to come loose.Fourth...the only way to put this together is to attach the pieces by inserting the bolts without tightening them totally until everything is attached because there is too much play in the holes and they won't necessarily line up if you tighten the pieces the first time you attached them. (I figured that out hte hard way.) Then you have go back and tighten all of the bolts once all of the pieces are put together. Also the set comes with a throw-away allen wrench, but I heartily recommend having an electric screwdriver with an allen wrench bit. Without the electric screwdriver, it would have been a serious pain to put together.I must admit it's comfortable to sit on, looks nice from a distance, and solved my shoe storage issue near my front door.

I'm pretty happy with this bench, especially for the price. Great size and seems sturdy. Assembly was a piece of cake.A couple of the legs were scuffed up, so I chose the best 2 to face outward. It looks great in my room, but if you are going to put this in a well-lit room be aware of this. It also looks a little too red in a well-lit room.My only other complaint is the packaging...the styrofoam was really messy due to thin pieces that were used (many of them were already blown to bits when I opened the box). I had to vacuum multiple times and getting all the bits off the bench itself was very time-consuming. I spent more time cleaning up than assembling.

What a great little find.Since I have carpet in my studio apartment, I needed a narrow, sleek looking bench with storage underneath to place next to my entryway to provide a place for me and my guests to put on and remove our shoes.This met all my expectations. I love the dark brown color and the faux leather is good quality. Very well made bench which was a breeze to put together.Pros:- Narrow but big enough to still sit down comfortably- Nice color- Comfortable- Ample storage room for shoes- Very easy to assembleCons:- Taller boots won't fit upright (just lay them sideways)- Echoing the other reviewers, make sure you don't tighten all the screws right away until the rest are in place. Will make assembly much simpler

There are so many problems with the one I got it was not even funny:- 1 Leg had many scratches- The weight of each leg differed quite a bit.. which lead me to question how durable the lightest leg is- Some of the holes for screwing in the legs were not level so after assembly, some legs look crooked- The holes on the 2 slatted pieces were not aligned to the holes in the legs. I had to go to Home Depot to get correctly aligned holes drilled inIf not for these problems it would have been perfect in terms of looks and ease of assembly. Buy at your own risk.