The wood is not sealed or treated in anyway that would make one want to touch it—which is good because the stain wipes off as soon as you touch it, leaving gross black/brown residue on hands.
The metal rods were easy to screw in and are, in and of themselves, solid enough to handle your average boots but getting all twelve of them to actually screw tight enough to the wood to not wobble on a 30 degree axis has been impossible. The wood is just so soft that basic impact (like a kid trying to put their boots on it) is enough to bend the wood indentations at the base of the metal rods and after that there is no getting them to stand up straight.
Also, the black paint feels and acts like the black charcoal residue that gets cooked on to a bbq. Some air bubbles got under the paint on two of mine and, not only was that not noticed by the maker, but the paint bubbles popped when I was assembling—not from assembly, just while they were sitting on the carpet waiting to be assembled. I lightly bumped them with my thigh and the friction generated between them and the whole two inches of carpet the thigh bump forced them to roll across was enough to break/pop the gross feeling bbq charcoal paint and it crumbled into hundreds of little sharp black pieces all in the carpet. And, as I may have mentioned, they’re like super burnt bbq charcoal residue so even though they shattered all the little pieces were hard and sharp, like tiny arrowheads. Then when I tried to vacuum them up their sharp edges dug into the carpet and I ended up spending an hour doing a laborious combination of dumping boiling water, scrubbing and vacuuming before the carpet wasn’t a threat to my two year olds feet and hands.
Lastly, the metal bars are really placed too closely together to get 3 pairs of adult size shoes in a row.
Collectively: Good idea. Poor execution.
ou
