Prepac Barrister 3 Column 63.75" Media Storage, Wood Multimedia Storage Unit with 27 Adjustable Shelves, Modern Multimedia Cabinet with Removable Shelves for Books, Medias and Collectibles, Espresso

Most of this type of furniture I find disappointing, but was pleasantly surprised with this unit. The build quality is top-notch compared to most laminate-wrapped particleboard furniture. As the price and style indicate, this isn't heirloom quality, but it is well made, goes together easily, and looks good. The price seems pretty reasonable. Assembly took a little under an hour by myself. The best bit of assembly advice is to drill pilot holes for nailing the backer boards on. The nails themselves are sort of cheap and bend easily, but there are lots of them. I also laid it down to attach the backer boards instead of standing it up as the instructions stated. Since kiddos aren't a concern here and it is sitting on tile, I did not attach the anchors. It seems quite stable without them, and I'll be adding more books to the bottom shelf. The unit I received did not have any of the issues some others have reported. No scratches, missing parts, etc. I think it looks good and I'm happy to have my CDs out again.

I give five stars not because it's a premium piece of solid hardwood furniture - but because I think it's a great value for its price point, particularly at the discount that appeared on the day I committed the purchase. The overall quality is about as good as we see for these kinds of kits. If you've never assembled anything similar, you may face some frustrations but if you have, you're probably going the extra mile by using wood glue on the areas where edges meet, on the dowel pins, and most especially the backing. As the instructions advised, make sure you have at least the center shelves in place, stood up once first and make sure the assembled frame is level before you work on the backing. And I recommend you apply the backing with it face down, get your panels aligned so the edges all meet the middle of the sections you're going to nail to, and you must nail very carefully to the edges. Put your three backings down, and squeeze the assembly left to right to close gaps, use something heavy to weight down each side of your panels so they don't shift around, while you open one side of a Time carefully and apply thin layer of wood glue everywhere it contacts, but not so much it's going to bleed out of the edges. Drops would be fine. The particle board edges will absorb glue quickly so you have to work fast. I hustled laying down a glue layer first, quickly compressed it together and nailed corners, then nailed the midway points, finally making rounds until it's all secured. Using glue on final assembly carefully will make it structurally more solid, and the backing is important for structural stability. I ended up with a perfectly level assembly all said and done and I finally have a singular container for all my media.

At this point, I've bought and assembled 4 Double Width, 1 Triple Width and 1 Quad Width Wall Storage Cabinets (each are separate product listings on Amazon), to fill half a room with media storage, and I've been satisfied with Prepac's product. Each of the cabinets arrived without anything but the most minor cosmetic damage. All of the proper parts, hardware and instructions have been included, and assembly has been relatively simple. A power drill has been helpful to get the longer base screws into all of the vertical panels, but I have used a manual screwdriver to get them in as well. The composite board these are made from is relatively dense, giving the cabinets some weight and durability. The included nail-on gliders on the bottom helped me get the cabinets in place without scratching the floor. The cabinets are strong enough to completely fill with CDs, DVDs and or blu-rays without any bowing, leaning, or other concerns with the build quality. They're strong and stable enough, as long as they're against the wall. NOTE: These are made to be at least placed against walls, if not fastened to walls. For stability, the bases protrude about 3 inches in front and almost 2 inches on each side, but not at all in the back, so if not at least placed against a wall, it can tip over backward pretty easily. I've arranged my room to place 2 of the cabinets back-to-back and that's been stable. As for the hardware included to fasten them to walls, people seem to complain about these, and prefer finding their own solution for that. I've been fine with setting them along my walls, and back-to-back. The most trouble I've had with assembly is properly lining up and nailing on the hard paperboard backings and fitting the metal shelf pegs into the interior holes, as some of them can be pretty tight. I've used light tapping with a mallet and learned not to push them in all the way if they're hard to get in there, and that's worked well for me if I need to remove them to adjust the shelves. My all-over satisfaction with all of the various Prepac cabinets has been generally high. They do the job well, but don't reach my highest ideal. I decided to go with these after reading reviews and considering the alternatives, this seemed like my best option without spending a lot more, having shelves custom-built, et cetera. One thing I'd have really appreciated with the double-width and triple-width cabinets is if they were taller by the height of 1 or 2 CD sized shelves. That would make the cabinets the best size for CD, DVD and blu-ray cases to be placed on shelves vertically, meaning 9-10 CD case shelves tall, 6-7 DVD case shelves tall, or 7-8 blu-ray case shelves tall. The way these are, if you space the shelves for the height of the cases, you can have 6 blu-ray-height shelves with room left over, or 5 DVD-height shelves with room left over for 1 shelf of CDs. If you're not storing CDs in there, you can have an extra shelf where you stack cases on their sides, but another 5 1/2 inches of height would have gone a long way. As these are, the height is only slightly over half the height of my walls, but they still offer a lot of storage. The quad-width cabinet is taller, meaning significantly more shelving for movies. Here are my notes on actual, real world storage capacity, using real disc cases, and ensuring they fit comfortably in the shelves without squeezing them in too tightly. For CDs, I used all standard single-width jewel cases for measurement. For DVDs, I used all standard-width DVD cases. For blu-rays, the cases range in width so often, and also often blu-rays are sold with slipcovers, in steelbooks, etc., I used the average single releases in my collection. If you're storing only the normal slim blue cases, you'll be able to fit more blu-rays on the shelves. Also, this reporting is based on storage similar to described above, without consideration for stacking cases in horizontally to use up the excess space, also without consideration for being able to place anything on top of the cabinets. 40 CDs per shelf: double width cabinet capacity (16 shelves) = 640 CDs; triple width cabinet capacity (24 shelves) = 960 CDs; quad width cabinet capacity (38 shelves) = 1,520 CDs 28 DVDs per shelf: double width cabinet capacity (10 shelves) = 280 DVDs; triple width cabinet capacity (15 shelves) = 420 DVDs; quad width cabinet capacity (26 shelves) = 728 DVDs 30 blu-rays wide per shelf: double width cabinet capacity (12 shelves) = 360 blu-rays; triple width cabinet capacity (18 shelves) = 540 blu-rays; quad width capacity (30 shelves) = 900 blu-rays I can recommend these cabinets to anyone who doesn't need anything too fancy. They do make my large collection look handsome, and they're good, stable shelves. They're pretty clearly composite board cabinets I bought and assembled, not pieces of hardwood furniture, but they're nice for what they are. They're available and affordable. After buying 6 cabinets of varying sizes and having no significant complaint about them, the Prepac cabinets get my stamp of approval.

I really like this media tower. It’s not very tall and makes it easy to move around. Instructions were simple and I was able to assemble it by myself. For the price it’s sturdy and looks nice enough to display in a main living area. I am impressed with how many DVD/Blu Rays it was able to hold. If this one fills up I will definitely buy a 2nd.

These shelves are amazing. I put them together by myself in less than an hour--followed the instructions exactly and had no issues whatsoever. They were super sturdy even without the interior shelves in, and once fully put together, were even more solid. They were dirty, but I just wiped every piece with a wet rag as I unboxed them. There were no scratches or other defects. And they hold a TON. I was able to replace 2 other shelves with room to spare, and have about 400 dvds and blu rays with room for at least another 50 or so, plus a shorter shelf of boxed sets and other miscellany. The smell was strong, as others have mentioned, so that is the only downside. It's lessened after two days of airing out, but I'm still waiting for it to subside. Otherwise, I'd give these 10 stars if I could!

First of all this is particle board furniture and I'm reviewing it as such. I built two. If you want something nicer, wayfair has nicer and more expensive stuff. After I finished putting the two units together, they were sturdy and didn't wobble. A one star review I read said that they fell apart when they were carried up the stairs. I'm certain that if you pick them up by the top, they would come apart. The top is held on by a push in wooden dowel and one dowel that expands when you turn the cam. I had to carry my first one up the stairs and I was careful to pick it up by the walls and not the top or the bottom and I left the shelves out. I had no problem. I read another review that said the back was made out of carboard. The backs for mine appeared to be made out of something that I consider a step up from particle board. The instructions tell you to put the back on with the unit standing and some shelves in, probably to keep it square. I laid mine down face down and squared it up with a carpenter's square (you can buy one for probably 10-15 at home depot. A cheap one is fine). Until the backs are on you can wiggle the unit some to get it square and it's a lot less frustrating to locate and nail the back on with it laying down. If you don't have a square you probably need to put the back on it with the unit standing up and with shelves in it to get it square. A one star review criticized the unit for having a loose fit for the screws holding the bottom on thus causing the screws to strip. They are a loose fit to make them easier to screw in. I suspect if you use a power tool to put the screws in that they would strip in the particle board. Finally pay attention to how you orient the uprights before you start screwing them in. The one with holes on both sides goes in the middle. The two outside pieces are made left and right if you want the cam screw to face the inside where it won't be visible. The instructions don't tell you to watch out for this. When I finished my units had no wobble. I also like the fact that the base protrudes toward the front making it more likely, in my amateurish opinion, that it doesn't tip over. I didn't bother with the wall anchors and I liked not having to tear up my sheet rock. All the holes lined up and the shelf supports were either a push fit or a light tap fit. I'm no kind of handyman, yet the assembly was easy except for putting the back in. I probably spent 3-4 hours unpacking the stuff and putting 2 of them together. My major complaint is that the box was full of sawdust. My wife immediately had the vacuum out. The units had a strong wood smell which lasted for a day or two, which the wife hated. I thought it was ok. I thought the units looked nice when finished but I wouldn't consider them to be furniture. I never write reviews. I'm doing so in the case because I think some of the reviews were a little off base from my experience.

Storage cabinets for CD’s, DVD’s and VHS tapes are becoming as obsolete as the media they are meant to store, no company wants to make the investment to design anything worthwhile so virtually everything being sold is junk. Including this one. The big difference is that most of the others sell for about $45 bucks, which is about what they are worth. This one’s price is in the stratosphere and before you read another word, take my advice, it’s not worth it. I bought it for one reason, I have a lot of audio and video recordings on those obsolete formats and they are scattered all over the house. Almost every cabinet that holds a large quantity of media is low profile so it takes up a lot of floor space, which is at a premium in my house. This one is unusually tall and has a unique width that fits exactly between my closet door and the corner of the room. That is the one and only reason I kept it. If you are still considering this product, then at least read the following information and tips so you know what you are getting in for. TIP 1 When I am shopping for something I start with the one star reviews, they are usually the most informative about what’s wrong with a product and least likely to be bogus reviews placed by the seller or people who got free samples. Here’s what you will find in those low rating reviews. That they (a Canadian company, not Chinese) are careless to the point of irresponsibility in prepping it to get to you – everything is carelessly tossed inside with no protection other than a white foam that is carelessly sprayed all over the parts themselves. It absolutely does not come off no matter what I’ve tried, if you care at all about how the finished cabinet looks you will be disappointed, the ugly white foam covers many of the parts that show. TIP 2 Like most cheap RTA (ready to assemble) furniture this is made from MDA which is a way of hiding the fact that it is compressed sawdust covered with an extremely thin vinyl. There are actually some fairly nice products made from MDA, this isn’t one of them, it is the lowest grade like you would find at the dollar store. Except this costs many dollars, it is unbelievably overpriced. Compared to other products this should sell for no more than forty-five bucks at the most. TIP 3 Unlike most Chinese-made furniture that is usually precisely sized this looks like someone made it in their back yard after a few beers. Those useless front trim pieces that so many complain about because they make CD/DVD cases at either end impossible to access are about an eighth of an inch too long. I had to cut them with a hacksaw. No one who buys a cabinet that costs this much should have to correct pieces that are made incorrectly. IF you aren’t handy with shop tools, do not buy this cabinet. TIP 4 The flimsy piece of cardboard they call a back panel is too small. If you nail it on like you would on similar cabinets the tall sides are pulled in too much which results in the shelves not fitting. The instructions don’t say a word about this. The guy who made this could have avoided this problem if he had just put a fixed shelf mid-way between the top and bottom. SOLUTION: and this is a must – before you start to nail the back on install two shelves, one 8 peg holes down from the top and one 8 peg holes up from the bottom. That will spread the sides enough while you attach the cardboard back so you can then install (and adjust) the rest of the shelves. And by the way, they use the absolute cheapest aluminum nails that bend at the slightest tap. TIP 5 This is another must-do. I recommend never assembling any RTA furniture without using a good grade of wood glue. You will never end up with a serviceable item if you don’t. And it is especially true with something like this that uses absolutely no bracing of any kind. Glue every wood-to-wood surface except the shelves of course. TIP 6 I have never seen any company include a black felt marker for you to touch up their mistakes. And you will need it. Fortunately it matches close enough to cover places where the thin vinyl is scratched or marred. YES OR NO As I said I didn’t return this because it fits the space I have available and it’s not in a location where looking good is that important to me. After it was assembled, with me correcting their mistakes, it holds my remaining library of CD’s, DVD’s and VHS tapes. I can’t recommend it for all of the reasons covered above but most of all because it is unbelievably shoddy for the price which is way too high.

I have high standards for furniture and tend to not buy flat-packed furniture at all if I can help it. In this case I got tired of having my CD collection in bins and wanted a cheap, temporary solution for storing them while I finished plans for a more permanent shelving unit. At first I was pleasantly surprised with the quality. No scuffs or damaged edges, holes were bored at the correct size and in the correct place, the design of it is simple but effective. When assembled it's pretty sturdy (although I used wood glue where the side columns meet the top to add some additional strength). For anyone wondering exactly what they're getting, the sides are basically 5/8" paneled Melamine, whereas the shelves are finished in the same veneer but over MDF instead. And that's where the problems start. The undersides of the shelves and the undersides of the top and bottom pieces are exposed MDF. This thing off-gasses really horribly. It's been four days since I assembled it and when I open the door to the room it's in I'm hit with a wall of chemical smells (and this is with a window being left open). It's worse than Milwaukee Packouts. Had all sides of all the boards been veneered then this would be much less of an issue. The part of assembly that will also likely give people trouble is the backing board. You have to nail this to the back of the unit as the final step and I don't see a world in which the average person misses the sides or center column and bangs at least a couple of nails through the thin backing board. I used an 18ga narrow crown stapler for this which was much easier. Wall anchoring is also an issue. The wall anchor system is a screw set into the back of the unit, a screw into your wall, and a piece of wire between them. This is completely inadequate for something that's only the depth of a single CD. If you have curious cats then this is going to get knocked over very easily, and even if the wire prevents it from fully falling over, everything on your shelves is falling off. I added French cleats to the back of the unit and the wall to prevent it from falling. The final problem is the complete lack of leveling options for the feet. The feet are just tiny plastic pads that nail into the bottom. If you have totally level floors then this may be sufficient for you. Most floors however are not perfectly level, especially where they meet the wall. Having threaded feed that could be screwed in and out would help massively and wouldn't add much to the manufacturing process, they'd just need to bore four more holes on the bottom and add some t-nuts. I did exactly that and it helped dramatically. All in all it's a decent unit and I'm grateful I found something to finally get my CD collection displayed. But it was purchased so I didn't need to build my own right away and instead it's caused me to move that project to the top of my to-do list just because of the shortcomings of these. If you have a friend who has a saw, a drill, and a little bit of free time then just have them build you something instead.