Getting new furniture is always exciting for me. I don’t know how much that does for my masculinity, but that’s another story. Recently, I was in the market for a nightstand and dresser at a decent price. I went the first place any respectable furniture-seeker would look: Wal-Mart! Alright, so WM isn’t exactly a treasure trove of fine furniture. But it is an oasis of wonderwall — I mean, low prices.

After much careful research and a few hours, I finally came to a decision. They were both pieces from the South Shore Sereno collection, and on the internet they looked classy and fantastic. They ran me a total of $265, so I was expecting some decent quality furniture, ’cause paying $90 for a nightstand seemed a little excessive, but I considered the fact that I’m probably severely under-knowledged in the field of furniture. So, excitedly, I confirmed payment and began the obligatory 7 – 10 business-day waiting period. By the way, you get a serious discount on shipping if you get it shipped to Wal-Mart and pick it up when it arrives.

So I’ll begin with the nightstand. Upon receiving it, some construction was required. The instructions were easy to use and between my sister and I, we got the thing built in like… half an hour. We’re not carpenters. Either way, the thing came together smoothly, and I was satisfied with how it looked, even though the drawers are a bit crooked. But how does it function, you may ask, or at least I hope you would, ’cause I’m about to tell ya. The drawers do not slide in and out adequately, requiring more effort than I’m usually willing to give in order to open a simple drawer. Not only that, but when pulled out, the drawers seem to lose a lot of stability and wobble all over the place. Sweet! Onto the dresser.

It was relatively easy to build, but we did run into a few snags along the way. First, we were shorted two screws, which wasn’t that big of a deal, but inconsiderate nonetheless. Second, coming closer to the end of the construction process, we realized that the dresser was far too shaky and unstable to leave it that way. So we had to go out of our way to get stabilizers, which in the end didn’t help too much, cause I swear, a slight breeze could come through and shake this thing all over the place. The drawers, again, do not slide out very easily and require more effort than a drawer ever should to open. The drawers are shallower than I’d hoped, too, but they almost make up for it with more width. Also, somehow, I feel like the finished dresser is a miniature version of what it should be, because it’s only about 4.5 feet tall.

Now onto general problems with these pieces. I’d like to stress how much the opposite of good the quality of the wood is. Seriously, this stuff was chipping all over the place, it’s extremely light, and I feel like I could snap it with a kung-fu headbutt. The color isn’t as nice as I thought it would be. It’s supposed to be a darnk brown, but it’s so dark that the wood-y details get convoluted and it just starts to look black. It’s probably just a pasted-on wood covering anyway. So overall, this wasn’t the quality I was hoping for, but I do think the furniture will be sufficient for sitting still, alone, in the dark, with nothing to do, in my room. So let this serve as a lesson for all you Wal-Mart shoppers: expensive items from a cheap place may retain said cheapness.