Sauder Palladia 2 Drawer File Cabinet, Lateral Filing Cabinets for Home Office, Hanging File Folders Organizer, Interlocking Drawers, in Vintage Oak Finish

Positives? Shipping: Too often over the years I have received furniture in boxes that look like they had been in a plane, boat, or car that crashed. There are huge holes torn in the boxes and tops missing. So it's no surprise to find the furniture inside has damage to corners, etc. That leads to wasted time getting replacements from the seller. Not so with this box from Sauder. Extra sturdy cardboard corner pieces protected the unit inside--so that everything was pristine when the box was opened. Assembly instructions. I have assembled many pieces of furniture over the years. Too often the instructions are poorly written, featuring illustrations that do little good. I had gotten so frustrated by this, that I had vowed not to buy any more furniture that needed assembly. Until I priced wood lateral file cabinets in local furniture stores. Yikes! The prices quoted made me faint. So I searched anew for something more reasonable in cost and hoped I could get it assembled. The instructions for this unit eased my fears. My daughter helped with the first stages of assembly, and both of us noted how the instructions walked us through the many steps ever-so-carefully. These instructions were obviously written by someone adept in English--someone who also had a sense of humor! Since the instructions covered so many pages, at various stages the writer suggested taking a well-deserved break, getting a beverage, or--at the end--congratulating yourself by writing a review. The illustrations were drawn with meticulous attention to detail. I have never--never assembled a unit that had such well-organized, written and illustrated instructions. Kudos to the technical writer! The unit itself is solid in construction and well-designed. It has a feature that only allows one cabinet drawer to be open at a time, so the unit won't tip over. The drawer glides are solid (good quality metal and not flimsy plastic). Plus the glides allow each drawer to open fully. So no more will I scrape my hands trying to extract a file out of the back of a drawer. The cabinet is very attractive and will be a welcome-addition to the office I am setting up in my new home. Negatives? Assembly will take some time. This unit has extra decorative pieces which add to the assembly time. So budget your time accordingly and perhaps line up a friend or family member to help you. The unit is heavy--all press-board furniture is. So you may need a helper to get the box into the house and into the room where you want it. After it is assembled, you may need a helper to reposition it in your room. But, the positives far, far outweigh the negatives. Especially when I saw the finished product and thought, "This cost about 1/3 of the finished pieces I priced in furniture stores! $500 bucks saved? Hmm, I might reward myself with another German beverage, right after submitting this review."

Great quality and easy to assemble. Looks fantastic and is the exact size as advertised.

Can take a bit to assemble but it is sturdy and very pretty. I'm a retired engineer and shop teacher, so I'm comfortable with tools. The instructions are well done with each step clearly labelling what hardware should be used and how many of each. The parts are all clearly labeled, especially the hardware which has separate plastic pockets for each type, clearly labelled. Even so, the first one I did took over three hours, and the second about 2 hours and 15 minutes. Some comments on the instructions: Step 5 & 6 threw me for a loop but they really DO want you to set up everything in those two holes (step 5), add the safety track, and then abandon the holes and put it into the groove (step 6). Keep a careful eye on which way you should attach the slides in Step 7 as it's easy to get confused. A change I would make is I would do steps 10-16 with the unit on its top (as it is in step 9) so you are not fighting gravity, though it should work either way. I put a blanket on the floor to protect the top while I did that. The only reason I took a star away is that I'm not thrilled with how the drawer fronts are attached. Time will tell if it's really a problem. To get the drawers lined up evenly in the space can be a little fussy. You have to slightly loosen the four screws going through the plastic drawer front supports, adjust it up or down and then tighten them up again. I'm very happy with how solid the piece is, and it looks great. I hope my suggestions on the instructions help.

After reading several reviews I was reluctant to purchase the Sauder Palladia lateral cabinet but am now very glad I did. Primarily reviewer concerns appeared to be centered around poor packaging causing damage in shipping, terrible assembly instructions, and poor quality once assembled. I found none of this to be true with my purchase. While the shipping box was slightly torn by UPS, the contents were adequately packed and protected so that none of the parts experienced any damage during shipping. Admittedly the assembly instructions could have been a bit more detailed, but if you've ever assembled any other modular furniture these instructions are by far Not the worst I've ever seen. Total assembly time took about 2 1/2 hours which I think is typical for an item such as this. And once assembled it's a fine looking piece of Modular furniture for $200 and change. Yes, you'll be disappointed if you're expecting something of the quality from a fine-furniture manufacturer such as Drexel, but you'll never find a Drexel file cabinet for $200. That said, my basis for comparison is with the Saunder Heritage Hill lateral file cabinet, also found on Amazon, and which I purchased 6-7 years ago for about $25 less than the Palladia. The difference between the two is significant with the Palladia being of much, much higher quality. The sides, top, base and drawers of the Palladia are much thicker, sturdier and better finished than those of the Heritage Hill and is well worth the $25 difference in price. As a matter of fact the Heritage Hill became wobbly and flimsy within 3-4 years of use, and the top began to sag after a few years of the Officejet printer sitting on top of it. But because of the sturdiness, better quality of materials and better finish of the Palladia I don't expect the same to happen with it. Bottom line I am very, very pleased with my purchase of the Palladia and definitely recommend it. Based on my experience with similar file cabinets in this price point of $200-$225 you can't beat it.

When the product arrived, it looked like it had fallen off a truck at 80 mph on a very rough road. The box was retaped, had another customer's name on another label, and appeared to be a returned item. That was the impression before even moving or opening the box. The first thing was to take a bunch of pictures and save the delivery video. The delivery was fine, but the box was something else, which got only worse after opening the box. The first prong of this review will be the product itself, which is not good quality. The cabinet is made with particle board with poor "cherry" looking laminate. The quality of the surfaces was poor, but it was difficult to tell if that was because of the perceived return of the item or just poor manufacturing. But, there were improperly drilled holes that broke through the side of the hole, poorly attached laminate, and other issues that make it an inferior product. There were no instructions in the box, now assembly hardware, blue painter's tape on things, and things were just kind of flopping around in the box, presumably due to the return of the item. I do not recommend this product as it appears to be cheaply made. Now on to prong #2. Again, I assume this was a returned item and not a good product. I would not expect to pay over $200 for a particle board product. Anyway, the second prong of this review is that someone at Amazon had the audacity to ship the item as new in the condition it was in. It was obvious that the box had been stuffed with the parts that were returned, and there was obviously something very wrong with it without even opening the box. I am completely baffled that something like this could happen. Somebody at some point in the return process and re-shipping process must have seen this thing and thought it wasn't right. I finally figured out how to get hold of someone at Amazon with this problem and they were kind enough to refund my money and said I could do whatever I wanted with the product. I then opened the box and saw what a mess this thing was. Now I have to find some way to get rid of this unassembled piece of junk.

I'm very pleased with the quality and look of this cabinet. I purchased 2 of these and may purchase another one if I need the space. To clarify all of the negative feedback I have 3 observations: 1. The construction took me less than 2.5 hours and that included moving the parts upstairs in pieces because the delivery weight is 125lbs. I didn't rush and it was not complicated at all my. Directions were clear and only required a few tools. 2. The quality of this file cabinet is exceptional. Yes, it is a pressed wood piece, but the heavy duty nature of the unit is excellent. I compared this to full wood units that are nearly triple the price. For the cost, this lateral file cabinet is a much better deal and in my opinion a great value. For those who complain about the quality, I suggest you compare the price. 3. As far as the drawers not lining up, it only took 5 minutes to loosen the screws on the brackets on the front of the drawer, slide the drawer into a better place, and tighten the screws. Drawers are perfect now. Overall I love the file cabinet and was able to for the entire contents of a 4 drawer standard cabinet plus have space to spare. I seriously might purchase 1 or 2 more.

First, let me say this is extremely heavy. It took two of us to get it inside the house, unpack and assemble. Now let me share my experience with assembly in two words - ridiculously difficult! The instructions were poorly written and in some cases just wrong. Past reviews said it took one person 2.5 hours - well it took myself and a friend, who have both put a lot of furniture together over the years, nearly 6 total hours over two days. Everything from mis-drilled holes, to a track that was too narrow to fit the pieces that connected the front drawer panels. Do NOT attempt to put this together without a rubber mallet - which is critical to those fine adjustments to get the dowels and cams to actually fit in the pre-drilled holes which were off in several cases. We had to stop after 3 hours because our hands hurt from all the twisting of the screwdriver. One piece did not want to fit at all, but after many attempts, the mallet and making a hole larger we finally got the inner panel with the drawer slides in place. The anti-tilt mechanism was next to worthless as the piece had no way to lock into place to hold the drawer latch. The bottom of the side pieces is rough particle board and we had to add furniture felt to the bottom to keep it from scratching the wood floors. If you are placing this on hardwood make sure to use felt strips. The backboard was not squared which caused difficulty nailing it in and we had to make multiple adjustments to attach. After 6 hours we finally finished and it is in place never to be moved because this thing weighs nearly 200# when fully assembled. There is no clear way to use this for legal hanging files unless you balance the file hangers on the edges of the long round bar meant to keep the hanging brackets aloft. The ends of these long dowels rest in plastic, doubt it could withstand the weight of 40# of legal files so I abandoned that idea right away. I gave it three stars because in the end it is a beautiful piece of furniture. That said, if I were ever to buy another Sauder cabinet I would pay the overpriced assembly fee and let someone else deal with the headache of putting this beast together.

Sauder gets an A+ from us for packaging, labeling of parts, clear, step-by-step instructions, and quality design and manufacturing! I had bought Sauder ready-to-assemble pieces over 20 years ago and I'm happy to report that Sauder still makes a high-quality product. The shipping box looked a little disheveled when it arrived, but the protective edges Sauder included on the box and the cushioning inside protected everything perfectly. The parts were ALL clearly labeled with letters and numbers that matched up with the instruction booklet. The different types of screws and connectors were pre-sorted, packed and labeled, and the step-by-step instructions have life-size pictures of the screws at every step to help ensure you use the right ones every time. Assembly was straightforward and only required screwdrivers, a hammer, some patience, an open space to work and a few hours of our time. The pieces and connectors all fit together perfectly. Assembly could be done by one "handy" person but I was happy to have my girlfriend's help with lining up the parts, turning a few screws and keeping me on-track. If you are new to ready-to-assemble or not handy with a screwdriver, maybe ask a more experienced friend for a helping hand. The finished cabinet is sturdy and looks great in our home office. We have the matching Sauder Palladia L-shaped desk on order. We know that will be a much bigger assembly job, but if it's as good as the file cabinet, it will be worth the effort.

Arrived on time and in good condition.....a bit fiddly to assemble but had recently assembled the matching desk so this seemed a piece of cake in comparison...

Excellent product

I bought this item to complement the matching desk I bought five years ago. The product arrives as a flat pack. It took about 3 1/2 hours to put together. The colour is a perfect match and the product is sturdy and exactly what I wanted. The front design is almost the same but comes with an additional band at the bottom of the side columns as well as at the top. The desk has the bands at the top only. I highly recommend this product. It accommodates both legal and letter size files. Such a bonus. And looks great.

Cabinet meet completly my expectations. Excellent transaction and fast delivery. Sauder's Customer service was very effective for me because I was asking for a few more screw.

This item is terrible. I put it together and besides missing screws, poor instructions and some of the wood parts being damaged it is very poor quality. The box when it came in it looked that it had been retaped a few times. Also it arrived late by a few days Not happy with this one.