Studio Designs Ponderosa Glass Topped Table in Sonoma Brown

Bought this because its nice wood and has the glass surface. Everything arrived in one piece with no major faults. There was a very slight chip or something on one wood panel which had been 'repaired' but wasn't too obvious. It was mostly reasonably okay to assemble by myself. It's a bit awkward attaching the hinge thing trying to hold the glass surface at an angle while also positioning and screwing in, but I was able to do it. I liked that some parts of the desk were already assembled, e.g. the glass/wood-framed surface is one piece, and the side leg parts are already complete. The tray is already assembled complete with draw runners ready to slide in place. The only part I struggled with is when trying to attach the large surface to the rest of the desk... there are two smallish hinges. The hinges are pre-attached to the surface but you have to then screw them into the desk frame. You do this by laying the surface down flat and the hinges automatically line up with where they need to go without needing to worry about how you'll wrestle with this large object... but the problem is, the hinges are quite small and the screw holes are quite close to the desk frame, making it hard to get a screwdriver in there at a decent angle, or to have room for your hand to grip and turn the screwdriver well. This wouldn't be too problematic except the little screws you're screwing in, the desk surface frame is quite a hard wood and those screws really really get tight fast. I sweated quite a lot really straining to get those screws to go all the way in. If they don't go all the way in, the hinge wiggles around and its not a real secure mechanism, so ideally you have to screw all the way in to make proper contact, i.e. finish the job, but this is very hard. I almost gave up because it was so tight and I'm a pretty strong guy. Those screws definitely aren't coming back out anytime soon and I started to strip the heads a bit because you have to push so strongly to keep the screwdriver in there... and I think I had a good fit between driver head and the screw. So that part was quite hard but I got it done. The only other gripe was, they placed this very strongly-stuck adhesive label thing on the glass, warning about not putting to much weight on the surface. Getting this off was difficult, and it left an entire rectangular patch of glue. Getting this glue off wasn't easy at all. I ended up using several rounds of windex and soft paper towels. I had to scrub really hard to get it all off. There probably was a better way with some solvent or alchohol or something like that. Point is, why put customers through these difficulties? I would suggest a different hinge maybe that can just slot into place and lock or something, rather than such hard-to use screws - I can't imagine many people being able to do that. Also get rid of the stupid sticker entirely, just use a piece of paper tucked in or something or wrap a loop of paper around the surface or something so people can just slip it off, or use a non-adhesive cling-based label. These two main areas made assembly unnecessarily troublesome. Other than those things though, I'm quite happy with the desk, it looks professional, it's well built, it was otherwise relatively easy to put together, and I like the size of it. There is a totally open space below for lots of storage if needed. The sliding drawer is nice, could've been deeper though given how much space is under the surface, but at least it runs the full width. I have a clamp-on full spectrum lamp attached. I would've liked maybe some other storage options or add-ons like for art supplies and stuff. Overall pretty happy with it and it gives plenty of room for like up to 3 A3 pieces of paper across. I wouldn't have minded the pencil tray/paper catcher spanning the full width though. I still recommend it as a good quality desk of a good size for drawing and such, but some people may need help with 2 or 3 bits of the assembly process.

2020 - UPDATE LIGHT TABLE ADAPTATION - I've had this desk for over 2 years. The calligraphy got put on the back burner for a while and sewing and hand embroidery has taken the fore-front. This desk has held up very well under light use with laying out embroidery projects. Now, I've finally been able to set it up as a larger light-box/table. I put my light pad on the drawer underneath and added two of the puck style led flash lights and am able to trace larger patterns on it. I have to shift things around a little for the best lighted section. I'm also being careful not to scratch the glass since I'm pinning my pattern right side down to the tracing paper and then flipping it to trace the right size and marking.2018 - It's a good desk for my calligraphy purposes. The tilt-top works good. I can't find my light pad, so I can't check out how well it will work as a larger light box yet. I may try the small disk flash lights in the drawer. My husband assembled it and didn't like the barrel nuts which have to be aligned correctly with the screws. He would have preferred cam-locks. It went together fairly easily and looks great.

The packaging was fine, despite some dings in the cardboard box, in that nothing was damaged. The instructions for putting it together were all right, although it turned out to be way easier with two people to hold the parts in place while the other attached the screws.I deducted a star for two reasons. One was that the holes in the back-bracing panel where the fastener bolt receivers were very badly drilled. In fact, we had to take a wood chisel and gently scrape out the bottom so that the circular bolt receivers would actually go all the way in. Also, the holes appeared to be wider in diameter than they really needed to be, which meant the receivers would fall out of the holes at the slightest jostling, making assembly that much more difficult.The other reason for deducting a star is that the glass top isn't really firmly in the frame with about 1/16" give in each dimension, allowing it to slide slightly in any horizontal direction. It may not seem like much, but I'm fussy. Fortunately we have a fully-equipped woodworking shop and so I'm planning to put some color-matched shims in there to hold the glass more tightly in place. Also wasn't crazy about the HUGE and very ugly weight warning sticker (says the glass can handle 25 lbs max) that took scraping and WD-40 to remove.That all said though, the drafting table looks pretty nice, feels solid once fully assembled, and was a really good (and affordable) addition to my home office desk, being used as a side-table. It's a good height too for serving as a work area. I particularly like the drawer, which is roomy enough to eliminate quite a bit of desk clutter. I went for a drafting table rather than a regular one because I may sometimes want to tilt it up so I can see a book or something more easily while I work at the computer, and because it could easily be retrofitted to serve as a light-table for tracing (I occasionally do wood-burning projects and the glass top looks ideal for pattern transfers.)