Altra Stone River Storage Bench with Fabric Insert, Rodeo Oak

I have mixed feelings about this storage bench. I LOVE the look, but I wish the materials were better. We bought the matching nightstands, and together the three items provide a striking look when matched with the other furniture in the room. However, as one reviewer noted, the items are made out of pressboard covered with a sticker to create the "wood" look. The scratches can be easily filled in with a marker or a crayon but I wish I didn't have to do that. My husband put them together and had no problems getting the pieces to fit. He mentioned that the directions were better than Ikea directions, but that one does need to be paying close attention. The bench is sturdy enough and doesn't look cheap, per se. Just be careful with the scratching. I wouldn't pay a lot of money for this. Recommended with reservations.

While I did see a few one star reviews about how the parts didn't fit I underestimated how awful this was to put together. Basically I have put together tons of these type pieces and this was one of the worst designed in terms of needless difficulty ever.First, the parts are cheap and poorly designed (as others noted) some holes don't line up and some aren't even there or fail to go in all the way. I have put together pieces with metal dowels but I have never seen them this cheap or loose.Second the design required hammer, screw driver and has fay too many variety of items required to put together. It could have been and should have been so much easier. They even made the door annoyingly complicated.Last, the instructions were even awful, poorly put together with too many steps on each page (even doing that they had 12 steps with tons of sub steps) and were poorly drawn where you couldn't easily tell which way to place the pieces.At the end of this frustration I wanted to just throw it out. I'll need wood glue to stabilize it and I doubt it will last a year. It's basically garbage in waiting. It made me want to shell out the money for real wood solid furniture. Buy but be prepared for about an hour and a half of aggravation.

The only reason I'm giving this 4 stars is because of the difficulty in assembly. 4 screws were missing so I used 4 from my garage and only 2 of the pieces were labeled. Granted, you can figure it out if you're careful and look at the pictures with a microscope, but I did have to flip two pieces that were on wrong. If the pieces had been labeled appropriately it would have made things easier. Also, make sure you really measure out the space you want to put this in, it's fairly small.

I love this bench, we put it in our mud room and created a cushion for it. It really added something to our mud room! See my full review on www.happilyeverrushed.com

great quality once put together. Assembly is not for the faint of heart though so if you are not comfortable with "build your own" furniture I'd pass on this one.

DO NOT BUY THIS!!!! This is made of cardboard, it is not worth it also this seller charge 30% for restocking. It would be fear if describe the product as it is. Fake advertising.

excellent quality for the price bought 2 and put them in my mudroom (spray-painted the tops with a lace design)

Very cheaply made. The bottom is made entirely of particle board and chips very easy.