Studio Designs Vision Craft and Drawing Station - 35.5" W by 23.75" D Silver-Blue Glass Top Drafting Table with Pencil Drawers, Side Trays, & Built-In Pencil Ledge - Angle Adjustable Work Surface

As others have said, this is a good buy for the price (I paid $150 for it). The quality is far nicer than similar products that I have paid the same price for.Unboxing:Well packed. Got it fulfilled by amazon, mine was shipped box within a plain cardboard box. The delivery box was heavy and awkward, so if you are of small stature get help carrying it. For me it would have been easer had I taken the inner box out before trucking it up two flights of stairs, but a helper would have been nice. There was only a little bit of that crappy white styrofoam that breaks and gets all over (it was over the glass) so that actually made me pretty happy.Assembly:Not too bad. For the first step it might help to have another person or kid around, a good quality screw driver, and maybe your own small crescent wrench, but you can probably fly solo on this. Just gotta pay careful attention to the holes when you put it together as you can reverse a few things if you don't pay attention.. The instructions seem daunting at first since they show what first appears to be a million screws in each step, but it is actually pretty simple. See the drawers note below regarding assembling those. Took me about 30 minutes without rushing.Size:Its height is about the same as a standard office table. My non-height adjustable office chair is the perfect size. The desktop is great for doing sketching but still small enough to not take up too much space and is easy to move around. For some reason it looks bigger in the picture to me. Probably because the drawers are actually pretty small.Adjustment:You have to pull this alligator jaw looking thing on the back to adjust the angle. It looks like it has the potential to cause limb mangling if you are not careful, so I have told my kids to stay away from it, but haven't messed with it too much to be sure. I can't imagine me needing to change the height all that much. Plus I used the wheels so its not hard to get behind it anyways. You have the option of leveling casters or wheels.Drawers:The drawers are so so and a touch small, but they are definitely useful. I cracked some of the plastic snapping them together since they were slightly warped, so be careful with that. They still work fine. For the price I am not going to complain.Sidetrays:It comes with 4 trays, two if them look like paint trays of some sort, but would work great to hold a pile of pencils or other stuff. The other two have 6 pencils holes each and what looks like two dixie cup sized beer holders and a smaller square holder in each. I was able to comfortable fit 4 decent size erasers into the small square thing and a round pencil sharpener into a round holder.Secondly, the trays snap together end to end. You need to snap them together to get them to seat in the brackets properly. It took me a bit to figure this out and they seemed really loose at first.Bottom tray:The bottom tray is a good size metal pencil tray. All the drafting tables I have used in the past have had a little teeny tray or just a metal edge at the bottom. This thing is very roomy and I like it.Tabletop surface:Its nice glass. But a touch slippery. A cork bottom t-square might be a good idea. Its not frosted, I already had to clean my kid's fingerprints off of it. However, it looks like it will make a great ghetto light box if I place a light under it. The rest of my office desktops are similar glass, its not too big a deal to clean it.Pros:-Great for the price overall.- I am just an amateur hack at drawing and I think this will be perfect for the kids and I and probably my wife for scrapbooking.- A lot of other pros are listed above mixed in with my other review points.- Looks pretty cool.- Lots of storage.Cons:- The trays are raised above the glass surface. This is not an issue unless you want to use a T-Square. When I tried my T-Square I had to use the trays as the guide on the left. Thats not going to be accurate enough for actual drafting since they flex and I wouldn't trust it to align say a photo that you are about to permanently glue into a scrap book. Good enough though if you are just dicking around. I might try dropping the 4 tray brackets on one side with washers and longer screws, or just remove all the brackets and trays on one side. I'll post photos if that works.- A second issue with the trays being raised. If you put a T-Square on it horizontally, it will not be fully touching the surface since the trays raise it, this causes it to slide (even at 30 degrees the T-Square wants to fall off the table) and you have to push and bend it down to actually be able to draw a straight line.- The pencil tray at the bottom is also raised above the glass surface. If you have a T-Square over say 25.5", and are using it vertically, you will hit this tray. I purchased a 30" T-Square for this table and when I use it vertically I again have to press it down and bend it in order to get a straight line, or use it horizontally with a triangle (assuming you fix the tray issue above). I will also try to fix this with washers and longer screws, or might just get a 24" T-Square to use vertically. I suppose I could bend the tray down a bit, but if I didn't do it straight it might look bad.- The pencil holders in the trays are pretty small. They are good for pencils for sure, but will not hold my Sakura micron pens nor Faber Castell Pitt brush pens.- Some pins sticking out of the sides to hold a roll of tape or a T-Square would be nice. I guess thats not really a con, would just be nice. Perhaps I will add those myself.Overall impressions. I am glad I got this. It might be a bit of a pain for me to get it to work good with a T-Square, but for what I got for $150 I am quite happy having to mess around with it a bit.

Assembly:My desk arrived yesterday, and although it was easy to assemble, it did take a good bit of time. I might add that there were no extra screws, etc. so be careful not to misplace anything. The directions were pretty clear. Pay attention to the details so you know if the legs, center bar, etc., are facing the correct direction. The only thing that I found somewhat difficult were the eight brackets that get screwed to the edges of the table top (4 on each side). To make it easier, I screwed the screws directly into the hole (just a little), then removed them. The screws and brackets then easily screwed in by hand. By the way, the only tool NOT included was a Philips screw driver. A super thin wrench was supplied and will work if you don't have anything else, but if you have a standard 12 point wrench it will speed you up considerably! Also be careful when you put the drawers together, it seemed as though they could break or crack if not handled properly.I would like to address a couple of the questions/complaints I saw.The first is that this desk can't be used with a T-square. Although I do not use a T-square, myself, I think this desk can be made to use with one. There are four plastic compartments (2 on either side) to hold pencils, erasers, paint, etc. If one wishes to use a T-square, all that needs to be done is remove the side compartments on one side -- leaving the 2 compartments on the other side for necessities. The pencil ledge could also be removed at the bottom of the table if it is in the way to use the T-square vertically. Remember, there will still be a pencil compartment on one side.Another question/issue mentioned is not having a way of keeping one's paper on the table when it is in the lifted position. I tried a quick experiment that seems to work. I removed some shelf liner in my bathroom medicine cabinet, place it on the glass, and laid my 18"x24" drawing tablet (with 21 sheets of 80 lb. paper) on top of it. Unfortunately, I didn't have a piece of liner as large as my tablet but the paper still held securely to the table in the 1st - 5th positions. When I turned the paper horizontally, the tablet still held, but the paper itself "hung low" on the unbound edge (see photo). My smaller 12x9" sketch book contains 75 sheets of 75 lb. paper. When placed on the shelf liner, this tablet held fast in the 1st-6th positions. Only the 7th (last) position was too steep. As I mentioned, my desk just arrived, so I haven't had a chance to put this experiment to use for long periods. One might not want to lift the desk and walk away, but I have complete confidence that this will work while I am drawing -- and I will be able to continue to use my tablet and not have to tear individual pages out and tape them to the glass. By the way, the desk is well made; and I love that I can push it from room to room! At this point, there is not one single complaint to make! [I included pictures but apologize for some of them turning on their side.]