Hiba Large Solid Oak and Steel Shelving Unit, natural, LA REDOUTE INTERIEURS

This set of shelves looks fantastic. Much nicer than in the photos. The metal is an anthracite colour rather than plain jet black, which is a fantastic. It's incredibly sturdy and a little unusual with the two (or three) metal beams at the front.

Assembly was time consuming but not overly difficult. You have to be careful to align the shelves as you screw directly into the wood. I made pilot holes because I didn't feel the supplied screws should go straight into it as the wood is solid and heavy, but as you might expect, is not all one piece.

The bad, it required a LOT of space to assemble. I have a small living room, and I had to move all of my furniture so I could built it. It requires the frame building on the floor, and then you need to slide in the wooden shelves from the side, so basically you need around 3 metres by 2 metres which is a crazy amount of space. I ended up getting the bottom shelf in and secured, then stood it upright and did the rest.

The item was well packaged with a LOT of cardboard. However there were no corner protectors on the wooden shelves. I suspect this is the reason that some of the shelves arrived with damage to the corners. Given the hassle that would be involved in returning it I decided to just make do, as it's not too visible thanks to positioning the damaged pieces lower down.

The metal frame was easy to erect. However, when it came time to attach the shelves to the frame there are no predrilled holes to line up with the metal frame. Really strange for a shelving unit like this. Screws are provided, but no holes. So, we have slid the wooden shelves into place but they are not yet secured.

It's a nice looking piece but no explanation as to why they would not mark the positions of the screws for you.

The item took 9 days to arrive. This was longer than originally stated but Comms were fairly clear.