Harvard Collection Executive Desk

After reading the reviews, I expected a pretty nice desk. In the back of my mind, however, was the fact that it is an assembly required desk, and I've owned several assembly required desks in the past, and my experiences with them have led me to believe that they are generally a bit rickety and unstable, so I expected a bit of that with this desk. I was pleasantly surprised to find that, not only was the assembly of this desk far less complicated than others I've had, but the construction is very solid. There is no wobbling or creaking or sticking drawers. This is a very solid piece of furniture.

The drawers (including the pull-out keyboard drawer) pull very smoothly, and close snugly. None of the drawers are even remotely crooked - which is likely due in large part to the pre-installation of the slide rails. The rails are all pre-mounted to the drawers and the parts of the desk that receive the drawers, thus eliminating any consumer error in aligning them. The rails are high quality and include ball bearing mechanisms to smooth out their opening and closing.

The 4 smaller drawers are all felt-lined which adds a nice traditional feel to them, and helps to prevent the noise from the rattling of pens or other items in the drawers as you open or close them.

The "front" of the desk (non-drawer side) concerned me since there were no images of it. I didn't know if it would be a flat finished surface, a decorative finished surface or an ugly unfinished surface. It turns out that the front side is finished nicely. The "modesty panel" is a flat finished surface while the two columns are somewhat decorative - they look like large handle-less drawers with a flat outside edge. Not particularly fancy, but not plain or unfinished either.

The only complaints I had with the desk are more suggestions than complaints.

First, I would have liked at least one locking drawer, but this may be something that I can modify on my own if the need arises.

Second, the pull-out keyboard shelf/drawer, while sturdy and roomy, is in the way of the arms of my office chair. The arms of my chair - when the chair is as low as it will go - are about 1/2 inch too high to fit under the shelf. This isn't much of a problem except that when I am not at the desk, I can't push the chair in all the way. After measuring my chair and then measuring the arms of several other similar chairs at a local office supply store, I've come to the conclusion that the desk won't likely fit a typical executive desk chair with arms.

Lastly, as another reviewer mentioned, there is a noticeable smell from the finish. The room I have the desk in isn't well ventilated, but the smell was gone within a week. I would suggest using a recommended cleaner or furniture polish on the pieces before assembling the desk in order to reduce the smell.

I completed the construction of the desk by myself, but I would recommend having two people available if possible. I'm a 6'2", 250lb 40 year old male, and the only part I really had trouble with was aligning the top of the desk. The top of the desk is very heavy, and needs to line up with somewhere around 10 cams and 10 dowels. If you can lift the top by yourself, it's easy enough to set it roughly in place and reposition the columns until the top is lined up.

Because of the sturdiness and simplicity of the construction, this desk will likely be very easy to move. Just take off the top, the modesty panel, and and the keyboard drawer and you have 5 sturdy, manageable pieces to move. If you think you might move the desk after assembling it, I would highly recommend only gluing the dowels to the first piece they contact. I glued the dowels when I inserted them into the individual pieces, but did not glue them when I joined pieces together. This way, I won't have to break the dowels or the boards themselves in order to break the desk down to move it. The desk is plenty sturdy without gluing both ends of the dowels.

Overall, I am absolutely thrilled with this desk, and have even considered buying other pieces of the collection in the future.

I chose this desk after a month long search for the "perfect" desk. What sold me was the interesting middle drawer. I also thought that there was a gromit on the desk top - from the photo. There is no gromit. Big disappointment: the file drawer bottoms have not been designed to support anything, a feature displayed prominently on each drawer bottom piece in big red letters. I suppose I should have realized this had I read enough into the description. At any rate, I have had to reinforce these drawers to make good use of them (I don't want to use them for files only). The desktop is solid as can be, though, with lots of "field."

It took me three and a half hours to assemble.

I will use the desk as a regular home office desk.

Note: there is a supernatural amount of packing material, mostly styrofoam, that makes having a vacuum nearby a must. Also, if you have cats in the house, they will do their best to make you slip up during the assembly.

Looks Great feels sturdy does the job .

Bought the Desk, Filing Drawer, and Shelves based on the great reviews and I was not disappointed for a great price. It is high quality stuff and appears to be made well (very precise pre-drilled holes, etc) as when put together, all angles are square and seams are tight.

It is packed very tight in 2 boxes and takes a while to put together. Not too complex, just a bunch of cams and dowels - just pretty time consuming. I did it myself and it took about 3.5 hours. Filing cabinet took about 1.5. Shelves about the same. Overall - extremely pleased with my new home office - it actually looks 10 times better than my office at work which probably cost 5x as much.

Th desk was easy to setup, instructions & illustration were clear as well the material itself is good. The gliding brackets for the cabinets were pre-installed which helped a lot in the integration of the desk. The desk itself is solidly built and can fit tight spaces (approx 29" wide) if you have an office room that has a narrow door. The top of the desk needs to come off in that scenario which is easy if the dowels are not glued so that only the retaining screws would be removed. Overall, I am satisfied with the build, quality & finish of the desk.

Also, it would help in the build of the desk if the parts are laid in groups so that picking them out would be easy.

Some of the cons :
No touch up ink, for those accidental dings, there needs to be a touch up ink that would hide the imperfections
Screws for the keyboard handle are a bit short, makes it difficult to center the second cap into the keyboard tray. I used a longer screw in this case.

Set up is not hard, but time consuming. It took me over 5 hours, with the help of another person. Take you time and have fun with it.