First the bad:
1. This is not made from solid wood. It is made from finger/jointed waste wood that appears to have been pressure/impregnated with glue. So it has a very plastic/like feel and sound when you tap on it.
2. The finish smells like polyurethane thinned with cat urine, although it is of/gassing and getting less obnoxious with time.
3. Finish is poor, particularly around the headboard slats which do not appear to have been sanded before final finishing.
4. The central support legs do not reach the floor, they sit about 1/4 high, so the slats are going to bow slightly until the feet make contact with the floor.
Now the good:
1. It comes very well packaged; double boxed and with polystyrene packaging is in plastic wrapping so that you dont get white junk stuck to everything and is very easy to dispose of.
2. The instructions are very clear and easy to follow.
3. There are plenty of spare fasteners and it also has a ratcheting hex/key wrench which is the only tool needed to assemble the bed.
4. Assembly is easy and can be put together with by one person in an hour or so.
5. The finished bed is much more stable than I expected.
The reason that I only gave it 3 stars overall is because this bed could easily have been made out of actual solid wood for the cost. The bed has about 25/30 board feet of wood, excluding the slats, and retail price white maple is about 6 per board foot in the US, and the amount of machining is extremely simple (and in some places pretty crude; saw kerf marks are visible in various areas). I dont know what species of wood this is made of, but I would guess that it is an indigenous Chinese species that is a fraction of the cost of US hardwood. So overall, this is a functional bed frame, but I dont think it is particularly good value for money, and I have a hard time understanding how the term can be justified in the product name.
Not solid wood
First the bad: 1. This is not made from solid wood. It is made from finger/jointed waste wood that appears to have been pressure/impregnated with glue. So it has a very plastic/like feel and sound when you tap on it. 2. The finish smells like polyurethane thinned with cat urine, although it is of/gassing and getting less obnoxious with time. 3. Finish is poor, particularly around the headboard slats which do not appear to have been sanded before final finishing. 4. The central support legs do not reach the floor, they sit about 1/4 high, so the slats are going to bow slightly until the feet make contact with the floor. Now the good: 1. It comes very well packaged; double boxed and with polystyrene packaging is in plastic wrapping so that you dont get white junk stuck to everything and is very easy to dispose of. 2. The instructions are very clear and easy to follow. 3. There are plenty of spare fasteners and it also has a ratcheting hex/key wrench which is the only tool needed to assemble the bed. 4. Assembly is easy and can be put together with by one person in an hour or so. 5. The finished bed is much more stable than I expected. The reason that I only gave it 3 stars overall is because this bed could easily have been made out of actual solid wood for the cost. The bed has about 25/30 board feet of wood, excluding the slats, and retail price white maple is about 6 per board foot in the US, and the amount of machining is extremely simple (and in some places pretty crude; saw kerf marks are visible in various areas). I dont know what species of wood this is made of, but I would guess that it is an indigenous Chinese species that is a fraction of the cost of US hardwood. So overall, this is a functional bed frame, but I dont think it is particularly good value for money, and I have a hard time understanding how the term can be justified in the product name.