Monarch Specialties Dark Taupe Reclaimed-Look Office Storage Credenza, 48-Inch

This piece of furniture was bought for a new art studio/craft room in my home now that I am retired. There were many pieces to assemble, but my husband did not have any trouble. It is not as tall as it looks online, but will be useful for my supplies. For the price, it should be larger. It is a sturdy and well made piece of furniture. It also matches the desk I purchased. I love all 4 items I bought on Amazon.com for my new room! Monarch Specialties White Hollow-Core Office Storage Credenza, 48-Inch

I bought this along with matching Monarch desk, desk was 6 out of 10 at best and this is 2 out of 10 at best. I’ve assembled a lot of furniture but this was an extensive assembly. The desk came wrapped in bubble wrap and was undamaged this cabinet was not wrapped and didn’t fair well in transit lots of dented pieces. If the product weighed 100lbs less I’d have sent it back. It does look like pics but drawers and doors will never line up right and I used to install kitchen cabinets so I can adjust a door/drawer. I’d look for something else save your money on the desk and this. I had to put a piece of glass over the desk because the top was so cheaply made.

I had one door cracked in shipping and received a replacement in 3 days. Good company/communication. It’s a decent product for the price. Easy to assemble in under an hour very happy with it

I have purchased other Monarch office furniture pieces and have been satisfied with the quality and ease of assembly. However this one was more difficult to assemble. Additionally the quality in the finish was significantly worse than in other pieces. Doors would not align despite multiple attempts to adjust resulting in poor door function and look. Frustrating that an otherwise nice looking piece functions poorly.

We took our time and it took about 8 hours!!! Manual tools were used and there is a lot to assemble. Be careful of screws O and I...they seem to be switched in the illustration. Caused me to bust screws threw the feet. Also some of the wooden pegs didn't go down all the way and it busted through the side left top portion of the credenza. I had to stick the white dots on it because it broke off the outer white layer exposing particle wood. Sheesh! The cabinet doors on the hutch are gapped and one did not align even at the bottom. All the pieces don't necessarily fit flush together creating more gaps. Putting the bottom screws in the metal sides was like fishing in the dark. Took forever to catch the screw hole. Awkward angle to maneuver the tool they provided to fasten it. Gave up on the middle screw at the top of the metal piece that fastens to the hutch. Impossible to fish for the hole when it's already assembled like that. Not perfect but it doesn't look terrible and it will do for now. It wasn't really hard to put together but there is a lot to put together.

This thing comes in a million pieces and will take good 2-3 hours to get assembled. However, it is easy to assemble. We bought it as a set with the computer desk and they look good together.

Pros: -Perfect size for office storage without taking up a lot of space. -Offers a way to organize and store things out of sight to maintain a clean, minimal look of the space. -Lightweight enough to maneuver on my own when needed. -Simple, clean design that doesn’t clash with my furniture. -Customer service sent replacement parts for all items damaged in shipping. Cons: -Packaging promotes damage because it was tightly packed into the smallest box even though it was wrapped in SO much bubble wrap. (So much!!) -Even with the tinier packaging, it weighs too much for one person to easily move (the assembled desk is not as cumbersome to move as when I had to pick it up from the mail room in its package) -Even the parts that weren’t damaged by shipping were scuffed, scratched or dinged somewhat. -The cabinet doors are adjustable somewhat so you can get them level with each other but still not perfectly. -It looks like something I would buy from someone on Craigslist. It should look pristine for the amount of money it cost ($300+) I was looking for something I could use as extra storage for my office area in my studio apartment. I’d been storing stuff in plastic bins along the back wall. Since it is a tiny apartment, it was an even bigger eye sore so I wanted something big enough to fit my stuff but not so big it took up valuable room in my studio. This offered both storage space and additional shelves to decorate if I wanted. Plants, books, Knick-knacks… it seemed perfect. Then I got the package and it was small enough that I should have been able to easily load it onto a dolly and take it back to my apartment. It was wrapped in an excessive amount of bubble wrap (likely to help cushion it from damage since it was packed so tightly into the box that any bump would have caused damage to the contents). Once I got it inside and began unwrapping the contents, I realized that 12 of the 38 pieces were damaged (including the hardware, there were a total of 333 pieces). The slip inside mentioned to contact them rather than sending it back if the buyer wasn’t satisfied. So I went to their website and submitted a request for the items I needed replaced and within 48 hours, I received a response asking for a few details to ship the items. And within a few days of that, I received notification that they’d shipped my replacements. That package was sent in 2 packages and were again, wrapped in excessive bubble wrap. But this time, the pieces were not damaged to the point that I couldn’t use them. Altogether, it took me 2.5 hours to get it put together as I was trying to make sure I was matching the pictographic directions. The hardware was missing some items but I (thankfully) had some extras in my tool kit that I could use in their place. As a whole, this could be perfect if they didn’t use the absolute cheapest material and they did a better job of packaging it so that paint wasn’t scratched and scraped off and the metal supports weren’t bent in transit. For what I need, it works great. For the price and time I waited and then put into building it… I should have just spent $100 on a used credenza off Craigslist. Then the scuffs, scratches and scrapes would be acceptable.

I was not expecting much, but for pressed wood, it looks great. The dimensions are a little off. It is 47" not 48. For pressed wood, the quality surprised me.