Manhattan Comfort City 1.8 Collection Floating Entertainment Center with TV Mount Wall Theater Display, 72.3" L x 14.9" D x 63.4" H, White Gloss

4.0 out of 5 stars

By Rebecca S. - Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2016

Overall I am happy with the product and the end result

It took me a couple of days to put together a comprehensive and objective review of this entertainment center. Overall I am happy with the product and the end result, but I want to make VERY CLEAR to prospective buyers exactly what they are getting and what to expect once they do get it. First, the item was in good shape. When we opened the box for inspection there were a few very tiny dings here and there, but that’s to be expected when you order something that ships in a flat box – a bit of brown craft paint touchup did the trick but even without that the dings weren’t very noticeable. Now, the unit itself: The piece is…fine. It’s a mass-manufactured fake wood product, so you get what you pay for. We bought this for the aesthetic more than the superior quality, so I guess my point is to keep your expectations realistic. It looks good, the finish cleans up easily, but this isn’t going to be something you hand down to your grandkids or anything. It is what it is. OK, so…installation. Hoo boy. I had read the reviews of other Manhattan Comfort floating units, and when other reviewers say that installation is ‘tricky’, they aren’t kidding. This thing is no joke. I will be honest and say that we ordered this piece with full intention of installing on drywall and not brick/concrete as recommended in the specs, so we knew already that there would be some extra challenges. Before wisely conceding to my logic of “can we can we please just buy one instead”, my husband had planned to build one of these himself from scratch, so had already located all studs and marked centers necessary for a floating installation; we assumed that we would just be modifying the instructions a bit, relocating some drill points and whatnot. However, given the size of this monster, we also opted to go ahead and purchase the installation service to assist with the process – and by “assist”, I mean “do pretty much everything so we don’t have to”. That ended up being a complete waste of time and money. FAIR WARNING: If you choose to have an Amazon installer take care of this for you, make sure that the provider fully understands what kind of unit this is, how large it is, and what kind of modifications may be needed for installation. The ball was dropped here for our install; I don’t know by whom, but you can imagine my surprise when the professional installer on my doorstep is a lone woman with a small bag of hand tools here to hang this beast that is 7’ wide, 5’ high, and almost 200 lbs. After two hours of struggling to simply assemble the thing – with OUR power tools and with my husband helping her with the instructions – she finally just stepped back and let my husband take over the process of wall installation, again using tools from our garage. She left when it was about halfway done and we finished it ourselves the next day. So, installation service, no bueno. She did admit when she arrived that she had never done a floating install before and was also without her usual partner that day, so there was clearly miscommunication regarding what kind of unit this was and the manpower needed for it. Some notes on the assemblage and installation: As stated above, you will absolutely need to know what you’re doing and/or have experience in DIY and home renovation. If you have total confidence in your skills because you’ve climbed Mount Ikea a couple of times, you are going to be in for a major shock and probably a damaged unit. This is definitely a two – or even three – person job. One person can probably handle the assembly (slowly), but there is no way you will get this on the wall by your lonesome. Have help at the ready. Have power tools – particularly a cordless drill and screwdriver – on hand. Also levels, measuring tapes, stepladders, etc. Regardless of what kind of wall this will installed on (but especially if on drywall!!), map out the positioning on the wall beforehand. Locate studs if applicable and be prepared to make your own holes/ignore any predrilled holes. The wall screws that come with the unit are junk – every other one ended up stripped. Buy your own that are better quality. The package includes plastic concrete anchors but we didn’t use those since we were screwing directly into studs, so I can’t speak to quality of those. The unit is assembled into two separate pieces: the larger flat wall panel with the upper shelf, and the lower base shelf/cabinet. You mount each piece to the wall independently by first affixing a series of tongue-and-groove support boards to the wall, then lifting the (with corresponding channel boards attached to the back) onto the support boards. Slide to adjust and voila, done. This is actually the easy part. It’s heavy, but it’s not hard. The hard part is getting the order of operations right – something the instructions will not tell you. 1) The lower base shelf/cabinet unit must go on first – if the upper panel piece goes on first, there will be no room to lift the base piece over the tongue-and-groove board because there’s now a panel sitting on it. 2) Before you float the base unit, THREAD YOUR WIRING. There is a cord channel in the back, but the gap between the back of the unit and the wall is not quite 1” wide – I don’t know what electrical plugs look like in Brazil where this is made, but the channel is not nearly large enough to fit a standard plug of most US electronic appliances, much less a 3-prong or something larger. We had to actually put all the small electronics onto the shelf unit while still on the floor, run the cords up through the channel, then lift the base onto the support mount while praying the DVD player wouldn’t slide out and crash onto the floor. But, this is absolutely necessary, because once that thing is on the wall, there is no way you are fitting your plugs through that gap after the fact. 3) Repeat the pre-threaded cord steps for the upper panel too. This is really why it’s best to have three people for the install – two to lift and one to thread. 4) **VERY IMPORTANT!!!** Mounting the TV – HA HA HA HA. I laugh because there is not a single word of instruction on how to do this. The product description claims “Includes Brackets to Mount TV on Panel” and “The City 2.2 comes with built-in brackets to conveniently hang your TV” and “Simply attach it to the panel using the built-in TV mount”. We could not figure out for the life of us what “built-in brackets” was supposed to mean, there was nothing in the box that even remotely resembled a bracket (we searched every box 3 times and concluded it was not sent), and the assembly instructions say merely “Mount your TV and enjoy!” with an illustration of a mounted TV. That’s it. Luckily we checked these steps BEFORE mounting the upper panel to the wall so weren't totally hosed. At 6pm on a Saturday, we were faced with the choices of 1) playing customer service round-robin and trying to get the part shipped to us, meaning we might be on the phone forever and be without our TV for who knows how long, or 2) working out an immediate-gratification alternative that probably meant spending more money. After some thought, we decided not to mess around with any factory-type bracket system. For the sake of both stability and impatience, we opted to make a late-night big box run and purchase a separate mount kit that was sure to work with our TV. (After reading other reviews, this was a wise decision being as apparently the factory mount is very small and flimsy.) Then, my husband did some further retrofitting to shore up the drywall installation. First, he cut a piece of 5/16” plywood to run across the 2 center studs. He then screwed that plywood into each stud beneath the factory-supplied tongue-and-groove support board (also 5/16”) - see photo attached. The center of the support board could now ‘rest’ on the plywood, and the plywood filled in some of the dead space on the back of the upper panel – just made it a bit stronger overall. (We also decided to take the lower unit off the wall and reinforce it with plywood as well.) Next, he marked the plywood borders with a yellow Post-It on the front of the lower base unit. We then set the upper panel in place (after threading the cords!!). One the unit was on the wall, he marked his stud locations under the panel by following the Post-It upward. The mount kit we purchased was wide enough to screw into the studs on each side, so he used 5” bolt head wood screws to drill through the front of the panel, through the plywood beneath, and into the studs. Yeah, this put some pretty gnarly holes into the front panel of the unit, but you can’t see them while the TV is mounted, even from the side (see photo), and after all of this we are NEVER, and I repeat NEVER, taking this sucker off the wall anyway. This unit will be sold with the house! Now that the unit is up, we agree that it looks great and are very happy with the purchase. The slim profile makes everything look so neat and clean, and not having a piece of furniture on the floor that acts as a dog hair repository is fantastic. There’s some cord management stuff to be worked out, but overall we really, really like the look and the modern aesthetic was exactly what we wanted. To anyone out there thinking of purchasing this piece, I say it’s worth it, but you’re going to have to work for it. TL;DR: This CAN be installed on drywall. You WILL have to modify and retrofit the hell out of it. You WILL need multiple people with some degree of expertise to install it. It WILL take a long time to assemble and hang. It WILL look nice after it’s done.

5.0 out of 5 stars

By Andrew Mayzak - Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2017

10 Steps to Easy Installation

1. Read the instructions 2. Re-read the instructions and consider taking Amazon up on their offer of professional installation 3. Assemble using your best Ikea skills, convincing yourself that this isn't so difficult 4. Attempt to lift pieces by yourself, get frustrated, and give up until your partner comes home 5. Have a beer and consider again whether you should have purchased Amazon professional installation 6. Mount the rails to the wall in sheer terror that your panels will not be level or aligned 7. Argue with your partner about feeding HDMI and power cables through the holes *before* hanging the panels 8. Lift the pieces, hang them on the wall, and sigh in relief that the panels are straight 9. Laugh at how simple it is to mount your TV 10. Sit back, enjoy your gorgeous new built-in, and wonder if you should have used Amazon professional installation This is a great piece of furniture at a bargain price. MDF is dense (e.g. better than Ikea) with a durable gloss white finish, panels fit nicely together, and they even send extra hardware in case you lose a screw. If you've hung cabinets before and have a friend/spouse to help you, this will likely be an easy install. If not, this will be the single most difficult piece of furniture you will ever assemble. Either way, the end result is worth it in spades.

5.0 out of 5 stars

By Love_love - Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2019

This entertainment center will transform your living space. It is beautiful.

This entertainment center will transform your living space. It is beautiful. I read all the reviews here and watched youtube videos especially one by “Movies Acqui”. And please let anyone helping you also watch it too. First of all, I would like to thank all the folks who reviewed and included pictures especially the ones showing before final completion. It came handy. Before you open the box, take pictures of the packaging. Just so you can document any damaged parts if it was damaged through shipping. I didn’t have any damaged parts but that’s just a precaution. The labeling and the instructions are definitely a pain so be prepared to do some organizational here. Things needed: (a) Have a patient HELPER.. teamwork {high five} (b) Wood Glue (I used Gorilla Wood Glue); the one provided is so small. (c) Power drill, (d) Stickers (to label you metal hardware parts). It will make your life easier. (e) hammer (to tap the wood part # C into their holes after applying glue), (f) 3 pieces of 2x4 stud wood (bought from HomeDepot. Find the studs and mark them). we used 3 pieces 82” long 2x4 stud wood. It was 92” long so we had it cut at HomeDepot and I took the extra piece sawed off the wood and it came handy later. Getting ready to assemble the bottom part Open both boxes and get the instructional manual out LOOK at the ROUGH edges for the identification numbers (example (23), (24), etc) Get a food tray with compartment or any container with many compartments and separate the hardware parts and label them with the stickers so you can easily identify them because the manufacturer puts 5 different parts into one bag and you will have to sort them out. NO NEED IN DRILLING NEW HOLES!! Some of the wood have their holes drilled underneath the top or the surface but maybe showing a tiny “bruise” or perforation mark. You will have to look well under light to find them and when you do, you will find out there are actual holes under there ..lol. Doublecheck things before you hammer anything or screw anything. You damage the wood if you have to undo and try again. We assembled the bottom part first and moved on to the top (flat part). We attached the back brackets using the measurement from the instruction manual and how low I wanted the TV to sit. It was this point that we realized that the studs in my wall were not width enough for the bracket screws to be attached to the studs in the wall. So I came back to see the reviews’ images (Vijay Gandra, you’re awesome) and I found that he used 2x4 studs and we copied his steps. So we went to HomeDepot to get the stud wood. we used 3 pieces 82” long 2x4 stud wood. It was 92” long so we had it cut at HomeDepot and I took the extra piece sawed off the wood and it came handy later. And we used new screws same size as what the manufacturer stated to use for the wall. We wanted to be safe than sorry later. We mounted the bottom part first and it appeared to slant in a sloping manner (things would slide off ..lol), so we used the extra cuts of wood we bought from HomeDepot to support the sides on the bottom center on the wall. See the pictures. We didn’t put the tv cord or digital antenna cord through the holes before mounting the whole entertainment center. It would have been too difficult to do with a 65” tv. What happened was that, as we screwed to 2x4 stud to the wall, a narrow gap opened in the middle between the stud and the metal bracket, so we used a wire clothes hanging to pull the cables !