Sauder Palladia Library Bookcase

I ordered 6 of these units as an alternative to built-in shelving for a room we are using as a library. 3 out of the 6 units we received had a damaged "M" piece -- that's the rounded molding on either side of the open shelves. Two of them were entirely snapped in half within the box, and the third had been crushed such that its veneer was severely cracked. It was very easy, however, to order replacements for these parts via Sauder's website, no questions asked, and the replacements arrived within a few days. I had considered docking a star for the sheer rate of damaged units (50%, in my sample), but I think Sauder made it right so quickly and easily that they deserve their star back. The shelves themselves look fantastic. They are a little darker than we were expecting based on the pictures, but they are indeed a very dark cherry, with a slight red hue. We have them arranged in two rows of 3 on opposing walls, and they look very good side-by-side. They are able to sit flush next to each other because there is no top or bottom molding on the sides of each unit. The main material used is pressboard, and the moldings are little more than dense cardboard with a veneer, but you wouldn't know it to look at them. The assembled units are very sturdy, and we have each shelf entirely filled with books with no problem. Assembly wasn't bad; it was about average for ready-to-assemble furniture. Sauder's instructions are always accurate and easy to follow, and this was no exception. Almost all of the pieces, however, were missing their labels, and this made the first unit harder to assemble than it needed to be. With my second unit, I started using a drill to fasten wood screws, against Sauder's instructions. This sped up assembly a fair amount, but I wouldn't recommend it until you learn which screws may strip their holes, how tight they need to be, etc. The longest single part of assembly was hammering all the tacks into the backing. The most frustrating part was attaching and aligning the door hinges. Note there is a slight design flaw with the shelving. For the lower shelf in the top, open area, a bracket holding the front piece to the side piece blocks the shelf from being slid into place on its support pins. This means you have to hold the shelf in midair while you remove two of the pins, slide it into place, and replace the pins. Pretty annoying, but nothing major.

This library is simply beautiful. It came well packed and the color in the picture matches the color in real life. It's cherry wood, but has less of the red and more brown, but it's a deep rich brown. So beautiful. It came well packed and wasn't marred at all. All the hardware was there, we even had some extra pieces. The directions were easy to follow and all the pieces were numbered, so you did't have to guess if this was the screw you needed. Not all of the wood pieces were numbered, but it wasn't hard to figure out which piece you needed to use. They were very unique. I also love the little tips and tricks in the directions. Just when you would get frustrated, they would tell you it was time for a nacho break :). Also, you will need to put this together using a manual screwdriver, per the instructions, but it wasn't bad at all. It took my husband and I about a little over an hour to put it together. The moldings are an elegant touch and it looks like a really expensive piece of furniture. I purchased two of the libraries and one of the matching credenza and the set looks amazing. The only problem we had was with the hidden hinges on the doors. One library and the credenza's doors came out perfect, but the second library's doors are a bit crooked. We're working on their alignment, but still haven't gotten it perfect. Our floors aren't completely level, so that may play a part as well. The directions tell you how to manipulate and adjust the doors, but it will try your patience. It's still worth it.

I recently purchased six pieces of the Palladia collection including the L desk, hutch, three bookcases, and the nightstand. I got the bookcases and nightstand through Amazon, but the desk/hutch straight from Sauder's warehouse. Of the six pieces I purchased, only one bookcase arrived in assembly quality. All of the other pieces arrived with broken or damaged pieces that prevented assembly upon delivery. Chances are very high both UPS and FedEx are to blame for the problems as most of the pieces arrived on either carriers truck with a single driver who proceeded to bang the boxes around as they were too heavy for one person to comfortably lift (though I offered to help once they rang the doorbell but by then they usually had one piece in hand). For all of the pieces except the desk, Sauder was very quick to address my concerns and ship replacement parts 2-3 days business class. I'm less impressed with the method for handling the damaged desk pieces as shipping is via truck and requires 7-10 days. As a military contractor, I'm often sent out for weeks at a time and Sauder was unable to speed up delivery before my next scheduled deployment which means the pieces will sit in my house for weeks before I am back home and able to assemble the desk. The amount of furniture parts strewn about my dining room while impressive, does not make my wife a very happy camper. As previous reviews said, unpacking and assembling the furniture will make a mess. Inside the cartons they still use styrofoam to protect some of the parts and you will have little white specs of it all over your floor while assembling these pieces. While the parts are well packed and Sauder includes bumpers on each carton in an effort to reduce damage from shipping, it didn't really help me on my purchases. Given the issues I experiences, I'd warn the reader to inspect the parts as soon as they come in and file a claim for the damaged pieces. Don't expect to put your furniture together for at least a week after you received the first shipment as you won't get weekend delivery on the replacement parts. So now that I got the ugly stuff out of the way, I'm sure you can tell I'm very unimpressed with the delivery of this furniture. However once I got the one good bookcase together, I can tell you the piece is beautiful and does not look like cheap MDF or particle board that most people are used to assembling. The detail of the molding is impressive and assembly for me was relatively easy (most parts are labelled, some of the smaller moldings and spacers are not). Instructions are written well and the pictures assist greatly when identifying the smaller unlabeled parts. Overall the look of the final product is beautiful and trying to purchase a similar set in real wood would easily cost over $5,000 for all of the pieces I purchased. I'm hoping that once I get all of the pieces assembled, the pain of dealing with the issues during shipping will fade away when I look at my completed home-office. I was going to give this a 3-star review given all of the issues I experienced, but the look of the final product alone warrants the 4 stars. Just be prepared that as the buyer, you will be put through quite an ordeal before you too can enjoy the final products from the Palladia collection.

This is a great product! I was so impressed with the packaging. Lots of styrofoam cradled the parts, hard cardboard corners were on the outside of the box to protect the edges, and the whole thing was wrapped in plastic. Some reviewers said they received damaged boards, but mine came in perfect condition. All of the wooden parts are well-made and heavy! The instructions were easy to follow with written instructions as well as picture diagrams to follow. The whole cabinet took me about 3-4 hours to put together. All the pre-drilled holes lined up with their corresponding connectors/screws and it did not take much maneuvering to get things to fit correctly. Quite a few people complained about having to nail on the back. Still, if you take your time and ensure your cabinet is squared up, it is easy to do, as the nail holes are ~ 3" apart all around the edges and across the middle, improving the structural integrity. The only difficulty I had was installing the cabinet doors. The instructions say to install the hinges on the two doors first, then install them in the cabinet, but I struggled to get them lined up. If I were to give any advice it would be to install the hinges in the cabinet first then attach your doors to the hinges. Other than that I had no issues. thank you Sauder for crafting such a beautiful piece of furniture! It fits perfectly in my little cubby and looks like it's part of the house! Just a side note, I am 60, if I can put this together, so can you!.

This was easy to assemble and easy to follow the direction booklet. It only took me about 3 hours to assemble by myself - given I was also watching a tv show during the assembly. It’s very sturdy and well made. There are no lose parts after the assembly. It feels and looks like a high quality piece of furniture even though it is made from engineered wood. I highly recommend this bookcase. I thought it would look or feel like a cheap bookcase from a place like Walmart but it truly isn’t. It arrived a couple days early as well. It’s a beautiful piece of furniture and will serve its purpose well. I plan on purchasing more of the Vintage Oak finish furniture after such a pleasant experience with this brand and their quality. They have a website with videos you can visit to also help aid you through the assembly if you need it. For the price and simplicity you really can’t beat this product! (Purchased the Vintage Oak finish at $180 September 2022.)

It's a rite of passage for adults: putting together those pre-fab furniture items. I've been doing it for a long time, and it's only recently that I've discovered that some of them are better than others. For instance, I've noticed that Ikea bookshelves have a little notch cut out of the back bottom to accommodate baseboards. But this piece here, this is now the crowning champion as far as I'm concerned. I do some carpentry in my spare time, and I really was able to appreciate the attention to detail that went into this shelf unit. Just as an example, the card stock backing that comes with virtually all shelves comes in this case with the veneer on *both* sides (most manufacturers leave one side blank as a cost-saving measure) and with pre-drilled holes that line up perfectly with the shelf so that you don't have to mark or guess where the shelf is. Parts are well-designed and typically only fit together one way: the correct way. That's a huge plus when you consider the number of times I've put a part in backward only to realize far later down the assembly process and have to take everything apart and then do it all over again correctly. Not with this item; things fit together smoothly. The instructions are great, with the screws being used for each step shown on the page actual size, so you can simply hold a screw up to the diagram and tell if it's the correct screw! Nice! And the ultimate test of a good kit: do they include extra screws? In this case, the answer is yes. I consider it the epitome of miserliness for kits to come with EXACTLY the right number of screws, because if you lose or damage one, you're (excuse the pun) screwed. This kit comes with a few extra of each screw/nail, so if you lose one, you're ok. Frankly, I wasn't looking to spend this much money on a shelf, but I'm glad I did, and feel I got a great value for the dollar. Quite frankly, other than using real wood instead of particle board, there isn't much room for improvement on this shelf!

After assembly, it looks great in the corner. That said A good stiff breeze could knock this thing apart! The plastic/metal cams (7F) are a joke at keeping anything in place. They wiggle around in the placement holes no matter how much you tighten them (no surprise for the paper, er, engineered wood they go in). It would have been much better off with standard hardware and dowels. The center beam (O & P) is held on with 2 of these and just flopped around. I wound up inserting several screws and braces just to shore up the very weak design. In one attempt, I wound up cracking one of the column pieces (M & U) just trying to figure out how to get that beam to stay put and not fall of if something happen to be placed on it. When the screws didn't work, I wound up trying to carve a channel for a metal brace (and jabbed my thumb badly in the process). Also, the shelf for the cabinet part MUST be placed as the stoppers are placed on the floating shelf, and not a solid part of the frame. Without it, the doors just fold inward. Sauder used to be a good name. But with some other pieces I picked up in the past years, the shelves tend to warp if books are placed on the shelves of a bookcase, which has lead me to be leery. Now that they are using sub-standard hardware and just plain bad engineering... Never Again!

This is the third Sauder Palladia item we purchased. Also bought two libraries (bookcases) and the L-shaped desk. 1st, shipping. The two libraries shipped via UPS, the desk (in two boxes) via FedEx, and this hutch via ABF. All were packed the same: in a large cardboard box, with edge reinforcements, and wrapped in heavy plastic which was glued to the box. Only the hutch arrived with no shipping damage. My guess shipping ABF had less handling during shipping, less handoffs at various points. The UPS boxes were damaged in the corners, gouged and the edge reinforcements and plastic was loose on one box. Each box had a broken part which required replacement. The two desk boxes by FedEx had some damage but no broken parts though one box had a minimal gouge which marked the desk top which we can live with. 2nd, assembly instructions. Instruction books well thought out. Some parts had stickers, some were marked on edges, and others with nothing. The instructions however has very good images which one can compare against the parts to find the parts. For the desk this was important as it has what seemed to be 100s of parts. Images showed holes on each part and described finish sides which helps identify the part and helps orientate the part for assembly. 3rd, recommendation. 3a. After unpacking the box(es), identify any broken parts and get on the Sauder.com website to order free replacement parts. If part cannot be easily replaced after assembly, will have to wait until replacement arrives. My parts took about 4 to 5 days. 3b. Take the plastic bag with all the screws, empty it, and separate the various pieces into piles. Compare against the parts list; I didn't have any shortages, had a few extra. Helps during assembly to pull from a separated pile rather than a mixed pile. Especially since some screws are similar. Pay attention to black, brown and silver descriptors for parts. 3c. Make a large area to assemble. I did on carpeted area which helps cushion and prevent scratches; also easier on knees. Helps in laying out the parts, allows turning unit over which you will have to do to nail on back. Caution on moving unit during assembly as it is only held together with screws and clips and it is not real wood; while not fragile like glass, cannot take too much flexing or twisting or racking until finished. 4th, Quality. Yes it is an engineered wood product with no real wood; unless one considers wood chips as real wood. Made of glued sawdust and chips; some medium density and some high density such as desk tops and moldings. Backing is high density paper product; for the libraries, came folded and when installed the crease does visually distract. In my opinion, better quality than Ikea furniture. Yes we would have preferred real wood bookcases, desk and hutch however we also would not have liked the price. At this time, I think the quality and value match the price. Quality is very good, it is well engineered, finish from the factory is very good and price is fair. Shipping is the weak link in finish quality.