I put it together as soon as it arrived and finished it in about an hour. It probably wouldn’t have even taken me that long except I was doing other things in the meantime. It is made of laminated particle board but looks just like a fancy solid wood piece of furniture less than half.

My toddler uses this shelf daily with putting all his toys in and out of them and he hasn’t even scratched it once. The best combination of baskets that I have found is the NeatFreak brand large storage bins on the top which will slightly stick out from the top but allow for more storage and the Whitmor 14×14 collapsible storage cubes which fit absolutely perfectly in them. There are however many options available that will fit in this unit.

A great feature of this furniture is that it doesn’t look like a toy storage unit as it is not designed specifically for that purpose. In fact, if I weren’t using it for toy storage I could safely say there would be so many other things I could store in it such as living room blankets, books, etc and it would look like a great piece of functional adult furniture.

The color I ordered was advertised as chocolate but to me it is definitely more of a dark chocolate. It is a very dark brown but looks beautiful nonetheless. As a color comparison I put the “java brown colored bins in the bottom to show a contrast.” These bins are what I would think of as a standard brown color. You can see that the unit is much darker in comparison. I think it works well that way though because it really is s nice contrast.

You can see in this picture that the Whitmor cubes are flush against the edges of the unit. They are the exact dimensions of the interior and the wood finish is so smooth that they glide very easily in and out of them.

The only downside in such a dark unit is that the darker it is, the more dust will show. This unit is so dark that the littlest amount of dust will look like a mountain on it. This dust accumulated over a few days. You can see how there’s actually a visible layer that a lighter piece of furniture wouldn’t show. Even if you keep dusting it will still show easier than most. Therefore you have to frequently clean the unit. I find a mild cleanser or polish leaves it nice and shiny without stripping it.

In this picture you can see the molding along the bottom. It has a minimal scratch caused by me and in ignoring the scratch it really gives the unit a nice touch. It only comes out a little but and adds more strength and aesthetics to the unit.