Hodedah Kitchen Island with Spice Rack, Towel Rack & Drawer, Black with Beech Top

For the price this is a great buy! My boyfriend and I built this in about an hour and a half. (And by that, I mean mainly my boyfriend.) just put on some music and you’ll be done in no time. We used a drill to put this together as well, which I would highly recommend. We didn’t run into any issues with the wood splitting. The instructions were fairly easy to follow, though I have a few recommendations that will make putting this together a lot easier:1. Take out all the pieces and lay them out in an organized fashion on the floor. (You don’t have to do this but it just makes it easier to grab what you need during each step)2. You will notice that the directions tell you to put screws in the middle of the rails in step 2, but there isn’t a hole for it. Don’t worry, the instructions are very generic, so you really do not need this third screw unless you absolutely want to and planning on loading the draws with a pile of bricks. (You will understand when you have the instructions in-hand but I will add photos)3. Follow steps 3-5 exactly. The rails are also marked with an “DL” or “DR”4. If you want to add the two pieces on the side. DO NOT add them after Step 5. The instructions have these two pieces as steps 6, 7 and 8 but if you build it in that order step 9 will be a living hell to get on. (Not impossible, just tricky) SO, complete step 9 first by adding the middle bar, and then go back and do steps 6-8. (We took our two pieces off, to better fit or kitchen and the look we were going for)5. Follow steps 10 and 11 exactly.6. In step 12 you will be putting on the wheels. Note that the instructions say to use 16 of the K screws. Don’t do that, as you’ll need the other K screws for step 15. Do not let this confuse you. Simply use the small package of screws that are inside of the bag of wheels.7. In steps 13, you really don’t need that many nails. I would just do 4-5 on each side and move on to step 14.8. The doors. The instructions want you to attach all four of the tan “hinges” at once and then connect the doors to the cart. Yeah, don’t do that. Drill/screw in one hinge to the top of one door. Place the door in the cart by sticking the peg inside of the hole in the corner. Then take the second tan hinge and add it to the bottom peg hole without attaching it to the door yet. Once this is done, slightly open the door panel, align the bottom part of the door with the bottom hinge, and slide it in so that the holes for the screws match up. Then drill/screw in those two screws. (This will make since when you are actually building it and are at this step) Do the same for the other door.9. Two of the wheels have locks on them. You can unlock them by flipping the notch located on the side of the actual wheel. Then you can freely move the cart around or lock it in place. Then you’re done!!!!I really wish someone would’ve gone through and made a post like this, instead of saying the directions/instructions are hard to follow. They are not, we were able to figure these tips and tricks after trial and error, so I’m hoping this post will help save you some time. :)The only thing I’m not fond of is the gap in between the doors. This is definitely on the manufacturer as I am sure so people’s doors were the perfect length for the kitchen cart. I’ll probably put a small white card board backing on the back of one of the doors so that this gap is less noticeable. Overall I absolutely love the cart and would highly recommend it. It’s the perfect counter height, and easy to paint or add a marble vinyl to the top to customize it to your kitchen. (Or wherever your putting it). Like I mentioned earlier, please use a drill if you have one, it’ll save you time, hassle and you straining your hands to turn a screwdriver. Also put on some music, it will take you at the least 45- 50 minutes. If it takes you longer, it’s okay, it’s not the end of the world. ;)

I never leave reviews, and if I do, it’s typically only if something was awesome. For this, though, I had to take a second to write what may be my first ever negative review. I just want to maybe save someone else’s time and money. Unfortunately, other than maybe liking the colors of the black and tan, I have no positives. Here’s why this gets one star.1. The instructions were so poorly written. If they were written better this might’ve been easier to assemble, but it’s not written very clear, so you don’t know half the time what it’s trying to tell you to do. Some of the instructions were even incorrect. This meant having to dissemble things we already put together to resemble… and with it being made of particle board, not solid wood, that was a nightmare.2. It is NOT solid wood. It is all thin, flimsy particle board. It’s difficult to tell from this item description before purchase that it’s not solid wood pieces. While drilling or assembling parts, the planks of laminated particle board scratched very easily, and one piece even split completely down the middle as we were putting a screw in, just as the instructions told us to do.3. It’s not sturdy and the entire piece of furniture ended up slightly crooked/lopsided despite following directions to a T and being extremely careful to line things up. We finally got it all together and I was so sad to see it leaned slightly too the right and it made the doors of the cabinet not shut smoothly.4. Because it’s laminated particle board and not solid wood, it damages INCREDIBLY easy. It scratched like hell when we were assembling it, and we were being careful. Now, it’s served as our coffee cart despite the issues above, but if even a single drop of water gets on the top, the laminate comes up as a bubble, permanently. The top also scratched a whole chunk off just by slightly scooting the very lightweight coffee maker over. The top of this looks like crap and we’ve barely used it.I’ve only had this for maybe a month or so now. Overall, I’m just sad we couldn’t have a cute little coffee cart and extra storage on a budget, without it looking like trash pretty much immediately. I really wish I’d just spent a little more and gotten something made of real wood and better quality, because at this rate it’s probably going to the dump at some point but I’m going to get whatever use I can out of it because it was so much work getting it together lol. And yeah, I probably could’ve just tried to return it, but I’d already spent so many hours to get it together that even though it wasn’t looking good, I was not going to dissemble it and try to repackage it all to send back. Just wasn’t worth the hassle.

I've had this for several years now, and just thought about writing a review when I saw that I had to replace one of the wheels. I unfortunately don't recall my building experience with this, but considering that I don't recall it, it seems like it was a relatively easy installation, that I was able to do by myself in my apartment that I lived in. Overall, the build quality is not outstanding, but pretty good considering the price, with the exception of the wheels which are cheap, generic office chair wheels. One of them cracked when I was moving into my new place, and if you have to roll it over anything other than hard flooring, it's going to suck at that. My initial plan was to roll/swivel it whenever I was in the kitchen, but it had to go partially over a rug, which proved to be too much of a hassle.The rolling drawer sometimes gets "caught," so you have to do a slight readjustment when you're closing it, but I'm not too sure if that was because of my assembly, or how it came from the factory. It is a bit on the heavy side, so when I was moving it, I did lift it up by the counter area, and although it does seem like there is a bit of looseness now that wasn't there previously, it still held up well.

Thought it was going to be a hassle to put together do to comments, put together in less than an hour. Good size fit where I needed it to go. Would be better if the rod was removable to place paper towel