I read the reviews about the wood splitting and sure enough, the first screw I put in split the wood. I removed the screw and glued and clamped it then checked the size of the screw hole with the size of the screw and the hole wasnt big enough. I drilled it to the correct size and it worked good. With he rest of the assembly I checked the hole size with the size of the screw and I had to drill about half of them to a bigger size. I also would start the screw in the hole before attaching the other piece and watched the wood very carefully and if I saw it start to split or buckle I would drill it a little bit bigger (just be careful not to go too big).
Several of the pieces had small chips in the paint and not too noticeable scratches. There were some imperfections in the finish in a few pieces too, but if you dont examine it too closely it looks pretty good. Just took longer to assemble than it should have because of the problems mentioned.
Wood Splitting Problem
I read the reviews about the wood splitting and sure enough, the first screw I put in split the wood. I removed the screw and glued and clamped it then checked the size of the screw hole with the size of the screw and the hole wasnt big enough. I drilled it to the correct size and it worked good. With he rest of the assembly I checked the hole size with the size of the screw and I had to drill about half of them to a bigger size. I also would start the screw in the hole before attaching the other piece and watched the wood very carefully and if I saw it start to split or buckle I would drill it a little bit bigger (just be careful not to go too big). Several of the pieces had small chips in the paint and not too noticeable scratches. There were some imperfections in the finish in a few pieces too, but if you dont examine it too closely it looks pretty good. Just took longer to assemble than it should have because of the problems mentioned.