Victoria
I was so excited when I discovered this bed, because I've been desperately in need of more storage for a long time, and this was much more of a comprehensive under-bed storage solution than anything else I'd seen anywhere. Plus I liked the idea of using something purposely designed to be this as opposed to cobbling something similar together out of cabinets and plywood.
Once the bed is actually put together, all the storage is great. There's room to store boxes, there's drawers and shelves, and the mechanism for lifting the mattress up and down works perfectly. I'm looking forward to finally getting my stuff organized.
With all that great stuff said, why is my overall rating only 3/5 stars?
Because this bed took my sister and I literally two afternoon/evening sessions of constant work to assemble. The instructions give an estimate of 3.5 hours to complete the assembly. I'd say it took around four times that long. It arrived completely flat-packed, which I fully expected. Unfortunately, none of the pieces were labeled in any way, and all of the hardware was mixed together and also unlabeled. The instructions did have charts which facilitated our deciphering of what piece corresponded to what number and what hardware matched which letter code, but a large chunk of our time was spent just figuring that all out. This aspect of assembly would have been much easier had the manufacturer included labels and/or further sorted the hardware.
Additionally, there are definite issues with the quality of the particle board used for the pieces of the bed. Of the damage that I found on my bed pieces, there is only one minor issue which I believe to have been caused by the handling of the packages during shipping. But due to the way the boxes were packed and the quality of the particle board itself, many corners sustained minor damage, tape that was used in the packaging pulled some of the laminate off of the tan pieces, and small chips of particle board came off of several pieces. Again, the vast majority of this damage was not in places where handling during shipping could be blamed. It is simply a problem of packing and material quality.
Finally, we encountered major roadblocks at several points in the assembly process due to a misalignment of pre-drilled holes OR due to the previously described damage affecting how pieces lined up. During several steps, we spent undue amounts of time wrestling pieces into position. Additionally, while there are many pre-drilled holes for the various types of hardware, in several other cases, including ones in which you are not using sharply pointed hardware, there were not pilot holes, which made things unnecessarily difficult at times.
Ultimately, I am still happy to have purchased this bed and would not advise against others doing the same if they had similar storage needs. However, I would encourage potential buyers to be aware of the amount of time they will need to invest in assembling the bed. (I joked with my sister that now I can never move out of the house we're currently sharing, since I never want to deal with putting this bed together ever again.)
In summary:
PROS: Excellent storage space and organization; the mattress lifting mechanism works well
CONS: The assembly is incredibly time-consuming; the materials are less high-quality than advertised (though I do not feel they are unsafe) and are poorly packaged
TAKEAWAY: If you need the storage solution(s) offered by this bed, it is entirely possible you will feel the pros outweigh the cons, just as I have. However, if you aren't sure the storage offered by this bed will fit your needs, you may be better off exploring other options before settling here.
