International Concepts Unfinished Kitchen Work Center

This is a beautiful piece of furniture. Here are the things you should know:ProsIt is solid wood, not particle board.It came well packed and absolutely no damage. From the way it's packed it would be difficult for damage to occur.Some people have complained about cracking in the wood. I experienced no cracking. It is laminated hardwood and they have taken the step of putting in rabbets inside the cabinet for expansion and contraction to occur.The sides and back are beveled panels, making it look like an expensive piece of furniture. The doors are also beveled. This is quality.The drawers are on a track and open smoothly.ConsThe laminated aspect of the wood means that it should really be painted, not stained. It won't be ugly stained, you'll just see the difference in colors in the pieces of laminated wood. If you paint, it's already smoothly sanded and ready to go. I plan to use Valspar furniture paint.The directions are not all that helpful. I'm a veteran of putting together prepackaged furniture. This one was a challenge. They should have used removeable stickers to label the pieces. It's not too hard to figure out. Also the illustration of how the bolts fit together with the washer is useless, however, it's pretty intuitive.The orientation of the drawer rails with the track that guides the drawer is impossible to discern from the tiny illustration. My advice is to look at the drawers in your kitchen cabinet. That worked for me.My unit did not come with the allen wrench that's required for assembly. Fortunately I have allen wrenches so it wasn't a problem. Plus, they're inexpensive. Just take a bolt with you to the home improvement store so you can get the right size.Overall I'm very pleased with this cabinet. Despite the cons I still gave it a five star rating because it is of such nice quality.Update 4/10/16:I replaced the hardware with satin drawer pulls and hinges. I also took off the top and replaced it with plywood and some leftover granite from my kitchen installation that I had fabricated to make an over-sized countertop for the island. This extra real estate in my kitchen is great to have and I'm very pleased with the result.

The Kitchen Work Station arrived today. Putting it together was a bit of a pain, but I'm kind of a klutz...( If you ever see me driving a nail...RUN !!)However it is together and works just fine. Exactly right for what I intended it to be...Huh! A kitchen work station, how about that? The reason for the 3 stars is that there is a 23 inch crack running almost full length on the right side panel. It's a fairly narrow crack and unless you're looking for it, hardly noticeable. It really doesn't affect the functionality of the station and is certainly not worth trying to box it back up for returning.The other problem I had was the long screws, two snapped off at the head. Kinda' disappointing, so I finished that part up with 1 1/4 drywall screws, worked great !The Work station is V e r y S o l i d !! Not a single piece particle board, which I find to be a good thing.The drawer operates smoothly, However the doors are very tightly fitted to the point that when closing, they rub together making them somewhat difficult to close...a rasp and sandpaper will take care of that.The center shelf was a bit dicey because you have to put screws into the bottom of the shelf to hold it to the shelf clips. That puts you upside down trying to start screws into very solid wood. At my age and physical condition... think pumpkin... not a good idea. I just fitted the shelf, marked it with a pencil, and drilled starter holes. Problem solved !Except for the previously mentioned problems, this would definitely deserve a good solid 5 star rating.

This piece arrived in packaging that appeared to be shipped from Viet Nam to here and back to Viet Nam and then back to the USA. One of the side bottom shelf supports was not attached to the side and the side was split where the support screws went in. One of the door panels about 1/2 " in from the panel frame was split vertically from top to bottom. The support issue is/was easily fixed. The panel may be another issue. The hardware package was open and pieces were everywhere in the box but miraculously only one screw was missing. The piece will be spray painted and will probably be okay but I will probably call the company and ask for a panel replacement piece. Will update this review with comments about their customer service.The piece itself is quite attractive and is well designed and sturdy. It is made of 100% Para Wood (Rubber Tree). It's a heavy and dense wood that that doesn't stain well/easily (unless you are willing to take extra steps like sealing etc) since it is pieced together to make any and all pieces. That being said, it is well sanded but still needs a final fine sanding. Construction is simple with good instructions.The price for a solid wood piece makes it a good buy. If it were delivered without defect it would be 4 stars.Okay, during the sanding and painting of this piece it was discovered that every piece, e v e r y piece has cracks in it. I did the best that I could with wood filler. This is without question the worst piece of unfinished furniture that I have ever purchased. If you are good at distress finishing this would be an excellent project since it comes already heavily distressed. I certainly did not expect this issue after purchasing over 1/2 dozen unfinished furniture pieces in the last 1 1/2 years or I would not have destroyed the packaging as I unpacked the pieces and would have returned this item and asked for a refund. With lots and lots of extra work this piece will be suitable for our kitchenI lowered my rating to 1 star and unless you are prepared for some serious defects I would not recommend this particular product.