Catskill CraftsmenButcher Block Workcenter PLUS

I have really been going back and forth on how I like our new kitchen island. I researched every kitchen island I could find online and this seemed to be the best blend of quality and price.Pros:1. It is sturdy and looks nice. It is unfinished wood, which looks fine on it's own, or can be finished to match your own style.2. Even though the instructions could be tricky, it came together pretty well3. It arrived in perfect shape, no damage to the 2 shipping boxes.4. We had an issue with the drawer and I emailed their customer service and received a response in 2 hours. They sent out new parts immediately and truly wanted to make sure everything was working with the island.5. now that it is working, I love the giant drawer. Only short things will fit in it, and we put in all our pancake flippers/spatulas and odds and ends. It is so convenient to have them all spread out so you can immediately grab what you need.6. You don't need to add the towel rack or spice rack. I wanted to keep it streamlined and you can't tell something is missing.7. It is made in the USACons:1. I bought this for storage, and the dividers make it difficult to stuff it full. Each side space is only about 7". I was about to take it apart and send it back, but I realized that the 7" containers I use for flour/sugar fit in perfectly ( Snapware MODS Medium Rectangle Storage Container 17 Cups ). Baking sheets can stack up vertically on the opposite side, so we made it work. But a bit of me is still disappointed that it's not one open space.2. We had an issue with assembly. The holes on the side of the drawer were not in the right place and when we assembled it, the drawer stuck. We first thought that something was wrong with the glides, and customer service sent us new ones. Luckily my father is good with woodcrafts and was able to spot the problem and sand the drawer down 1/8" and it worked fine. If we didn't have his expertise, we would have been stuck.3. It's not all hard wood. I only mention this because there was some confusion in the Q&A section. The door fronts, drawer front, cutting top, and drawer sides are hard wood. (I'll attach a picture with the contents of the box.) For the price, I expected more hard wood, but in the end it looks good and is sturdy.So it is growing on me. Considering all the crummy islands in this price range, this is exceptional, and it was the deepest island I could find. I should also mention that I don't even notice that it is on casters, it does not move at all when I am working on the countertop. Once I get the storage situation figured out, and I recover from the frustration with the drawer, I'll probably come back and change my review to 5 starts...maybe.

I wasn’t exactly trying to break any records and took only a couple brief breaks, but still, the assembly of this took almost 5 hours. (And that was with only a couple of “undo and redo” moments). It only requires one person for assembly (which is good , but see suggestion below where having a 5 year old assistant would be useful).Minus two stars for deceit and misleading statement concerning the construction materials." Made from Solid Hardwood" should read "Made primarily out of particle board with a veneer on it, some pieces of plywood, and a few solid wood components, which may possibly be a hardwood of some sort. “No parts missing: However, the #7 5/8s screws were mislabeled as 1 inch # . I actually went and got some screws from my garage before I noticed what they did because I was attaching the part to a piece of particle board, and I didn’t want to use a 1 inch screw in a 5/8 inch hole, so I found some shorter screws.Equally irritating, the parts list with the instructions claimed that there were 20 1 ¼ inch #8 screws ... there were not. but I didn't actually need 20 either. This may not bother you unless you‘re the type that lays out all the parts up front and gets worked up because you assume you will run out of screws at some point.Minus one star for assembly/engineering/design:The instructions are poorly written. The parts are not labeled, left or right, and are illustrated upside down or right side up at various points, which gives you a chance to utilize your visualization skills, and when you fail you’ve got a 50/50 chance of getting some steps wrong. Specifically, I had to redo the drawer slides/guides ...twice, once for putting them on backwards, once reversed right to left. The tiny illustration of the drawer guide part doesn’t offer sufficient detail in regards to the actual shape of the glides, which would have been very useful in getting left and right correct.. And be sure to check if you’re drawer actually fits before you add on the top! Catching that at that point meant it was only a simple matter of removing/reinstalling four screws to swap the drawer glides, but with the top on ... I would have been tempted to turn the thing into kindling instead of redoing thatThe design for the twp upright center shelf dividers is just to slide the dividers between some pins attached to the back an one attached to the from. There are no “L” brackets to secure it. The trouble with this is that all of the pins which you were supposed to tap in with a hammer pretty much go in with barely a push and fall out quite easily. I suspect that after a bit of rattling around these will come out. Consider reinforcing these with some corner braces/angle brackets just to be sure the things stay in place. If I had corner braces on hand I would have done it right then, but after so many hours, I wasn't going to go to the store to get them. Maybe someday...Certain assembly steps require you to insert a bolt through a hole into a nut which you are supposed to be holding into place with a fingertip. Your finger is supposed to fit in a half inch deep hole about the size of a nickel. Good luck. The difficulty is hard to describe without doing it yourself, but let’s just say this would be a good time to have a coordinated five year old, with five year old sized fingers to assist. (Or some needle nosed pliers)The very first step of assembly they ask you to “tap in” metal pins into the top and bottom of the doors... but no tapping needed, and no way do these loose fitting pins stay in while you're busy putting other things together ... I used masking tape to secure the pinss in place until the time they were actually installed and would stay in on their own.You’re going to need at least two different sizes of screwdrivers, including one with a very small Phillip’s head.Putting the top on is ridiculously difficult. I think it took me 15 minutes just to do this step which consists of screwing in four small screws. Lining up the four pre-drilled holes with the "L" brackets you have previously attached is a pain, a second person would be useful here as well, one to hold the top up slightly, but it's not impossible to do solo, but then you're forced to reach two feet back through a narrow opening to get to the rear "L" brackets, meaning you have to do it mostly by feel, making it difficult to get any torque on the screws which are being driven into one of the few pieces of hardwood they use. And yes, The first screw I put in was in the wrong one of the two holes in the "L" bracket... I found that out when I tried fitting the screw on the opposite side.Minus one star for lack of value.As far as value goes, the particle board has a nice wood veneer, it’s not just "stick on" plastic laminate, but still it’s just a nicer grade of particle board, certainly not "real hardwood" not real wood or even plywood or OSB. Considering that is about half the major components, there is no value there. The materials for this could be picked up at your local home improvement store for less than $150. So you have to wonder, what are you getting for the rest of your money? Cheap hard plastic casters? The butcher block table top is nice and thick and heavy... but it doesn’t add an additional $400 worth of value. This would be a good value at around $350 as it is, it feels like a rip off price-wise.I'll give one star back... but only because it looks better than you would think after seeing what it is made of. Oddly enough the one feature that is legit, the top, we’ll probably cover up with piece of granite, just because of how we plan to use it, but it looks like actual furniture that is a step above many kit built products, not something just hacked together.

Very pleased with the table. It does require a good deal of time to assemble and you have to treat the wood, but I challenge anyone to find a better valued island on the market. The back panel arrived damaged so I had to work with the vendor directly (I bought through Amazon but they could not ship express because they had to reship the entire order and not just the panel I needed) and they were able to ship Friday morning for early Saturday AM delivery. Amazon, being amazing as always, even agreed to pay the $179 shipping costs (I asked in jest and surprisingly they agreed). I will fault the spice rack, however. McCormick spice containers and nicer glass spice containers I have do not fit on the top shelf. I have plenty of smaller containers so it's easy enough to work around, but the pre-drilled holes could be down a fraction of an inch and any spice container could go anywhere. A little disappointed an engineer didn't get this right. I already had the top drilled in before I noticed but it seems like you could easily drill your own holes in the side of the spice rack to lower it and accommodate all spices. Wasn't worth the trouble once I had it completed.