Winsome Wood Terry Shelving, Walnut

THE BOTTOM LINE:It's attractive and functional. Despite being unnecessarily hard to assemble, I recommend it.LOOKS:This bookshelf is composed of natural-colored wood with a pleasing pattern to the grain. It has simple yet elegant lines.STABILITY:On a scale of 1 to 10 I give this bookshelf a 7. This is actually quite acceptable for an item that is tall and narrow and made of light-weight materials. All that is needed here is common sense--put the heaviest books on the bottom shelf.PACKAGING:It was well packaged and arrived undamaged.ASSEMBLY--THE SHORT VERSION:It was really hard to assemble this bookshelf.ASSEMBLY--THE PLAY-BY-PLAY VERSION: 3 of the 4 shelves come already attached except for 1 support bracket each that you have to attach yourself by screwing them into predrilled screw holes. This part is easy, and it went fast. The trouble came with the 4th (top) shelf. In order to attach it you have to screw on 2 support brackets that have pegs sticking out of them (again, screwing them into predrilled screw holes). These pegs are meant to fit into 2 peg-shaped recesses in the sides of the bookshelf.Here's the problem: If you attach these brackets to the shelf first, and then try to 'slide' the shelf into place, you will create a deep gouge in the wood, and --believe me-- they won't go in anyway. There simply isn't enough clearance. Even if you do one at a time. Even if you flip up the bottom 3 shelves so that they're not 'holding' the bookshelf closed.I figured the way around this was to slide the brackets into their 2 recesses in the bookshelf first, (easy,) and then rest the shelf on them, and then reach up from underneath and screw in their screws last. This was impossible. There wasn't enough clearance to get the shelf to fit into place. Believe me I tried.After 45 minutes of jamming and shoving, and exloring new frontiers of cursing while contorting my body into stranger and stranger shapes (and even discovering a new yoga pose--whose name would never make it past the Amazon censors) I was finally able to accept that it wasn't going to happen.This cleared my mind to come up with the obvious solution. If I couldn't get the shelf to go into the bookshelf, I would have to de-assemble the whole bookshelf and reassemble it around the shelf. This was actually easy and fast because I have another of their products and had saved the special tool they'd included that fits into all their main screws. I removed the wooden plugs that hide these screws and unscrewed the top two. This created enough 'slack' in the bookshelf for me to fit the final shelf into place, resting on the two brackets. I then rescrewed the 2 screw. At this point I'd planned to screw the brackets into the shelf but now that the shelf was where it was supposed to be it was obvious that the predrilled screw holes were not. On the other hand, now that I'd assembled the bookshelf around the top shelf, both it and the 2 brackets it rested on were jammed in so tight I couldn't have removed them with brute force even if I'd wanted to.So I called it done.CONCLUSION:Aside from wishing more care had been given to preassembling this product, I am well pleased with it. I live and work in a 2 room studio, so each new item of furniture has to be both beautiful and functional to justify the space it's taking up.This bookshelf passes both tests with flying colors. It is a lovely new addition to my teeny tiny home.

I bought this unit despite the reviews that it was hard to put together. I had it delivered to my workplace because I have more tools here.Here is how I did it, and it took me maybe 20 minutes.I'm a woman.All I needed was a torque screwdriver with a phillips head, and mine does torque both forward and reverse.I put the 4 shelf pegs in first and left them a little loose until I got the shelves down.After that I ignored the rest of the instructions.I laid the entire unit on it's side, bottom of it to my right side like a U facing up.I put a small empty box in the middle to keep it open. I put the pegs into the sides for the top shelf to match the holes.I put the shelf in, and I had to use a little force to get it to seat, but I figure that is why the side nearest to me was a little loose on the topI did the screws on the side away from me first. They were a tiny bit off straight, but went in nicely.When doing the ones nearest to me I saw it would be a little harder.I put the unit on it's side, like a U facing away from meI leaned the unit back towards me a little, and lifted the nearest shelf to my right and I could fit my screwdriver in in straight that way.It took a couple of tries to balance the screws, and if you had a magnetic head it would be no issue. I torqued them right in.I stood the unit up, adjusted the shelf pegs and tightened them down.Done

Ordered two units. Assembly required, but not difficult. My only gripe is that both units had quite a bit of mildew on them and required a good scrub down with cleaning ammonia. Otherwise, they look fine and suit my needs.

NOTE (9/16/2012): I just received four Winsome natural folding bookcases of the three-tier version, and they have taken a nosedive in quality (now manufactured in Vietnam, not Malaysia, and not made of beechwood any more). If this now applies to the four-tier version of the shelf, this product is no longer of any quality whatsoever!...This bookcase is perfect for snug areas, and it's very stable given its dimensions (just over a foot wide x 1 foot deep), though acrobatic children could be a problem for it. The downside to the slim dimensions is that, unlike the stackable 3-tier shelves, these are not screw/groove-prepped for stacking multiple units and do not contain that hardware found in the 3-tiers, although the legs (sides) are properly grooved underneath and above to allow stacking. The height of each shelf will make stacking under a standard 8' ceiling impossible.The important downside to the narrow width is these bookcases will not fold up perfectly after they're put together. Unlike the wider 3-tier shelves, the two legs (sides) obviously have to fold over each other, so once the shelf support pegs are installed in both sides, the legs can no longer close flush to the back of the case. This can be problematic for moving, since you either risk scratching/bending from an imperfect fold, or must unscrew the four shelf support pegs from the right leg. If frequent moving will not be done, this drawback will be a non-issue.I have found that the left four pre-installed (screwed) shelf support pegs consistently do not match the pilot holes for the shelf support peg screws on the right side, resulting in shelf support pegs that have a 1/4" discrepancy between left and right sides. On removing the pre-installed shelf support pegs, I discovered there were holes piloted in the correct spot (hidden by the shelf support pegs) that were not used by the factory (1/4" higher than the actual screws were drilled). It seems the machining was off in this process, and as long as the left leg shelf support pegs are re-installed (unscrewed and rescrewed) into the correct pilot holes that are originally hidden, the shelves will balance on either side.All in all, this is an inventive design that suits its purpose very well (the top shelf is perfect height for placement of a table lamp), and given this is a fine looking tropical hardwood bookcase that will hold as heavy a row of books as you can fit on each shelf, there is absolutely no better shelf for the money these cost.

Exactly what I was after! Was looking for a bookshelf for my ever-accumulating collection of books, but did not want anything that would take up a lot of space. This fits very nicely into the corner of our living room, holds all my books with room to spare, and when not needed, I like the feature that it can be folded up! Nice looking and solid piece. Definite value for the money! Highly recommended.

Good overall. Minus one star because the top shelf lacked holes for screws; in the end I just glued it to the hinge and it works fine.

Real wood, folding shelf! There are now 4 of these in my home because they're real wood and not bad looking, and with just the twist of a screwdriver (to fold the stability pegs out of the way), they fold totally flat. So handy, and easy on the eyes!

Very stable. Used to store towels in bathroom extra storage in bathroom

Anything I can take out the box and don't have to work at assembling it a major bonus. And, when it looks as good as this shelving unit all I can say is ......yeah!!