Avista TV Stand

In all honesty, I was terrified to order this TV stand because of the horror stories in other reviews about damaged materials and packing peanut explosions. Let me just say, none of that came to pass. There was hardly any mess at all... to put the unit together and sweep/vacuum the area afterwards took a total of 45 mins. That includes walking the box to the dumpster at my apt complex. The directions were incredibly easy to follow and everything was very clearly labeled. I've included a pic of the stand after I set it up. I have a 45" Samsung TV that is mounted in the pic. Also, I show a pic of how clearly labeled the materials were from the package. Also, the wood on the unit doesn't look like that cheap Wal-Mart furniture or anything... looks very solid and def feels solid. The unit is 98 lbs, most of which is the weight of the glass that's included. The glass is extremely heavy duty.

As others might have stated, you get a mess of styrofoam when you open up the box. The outer box had a hole that went through the inner box (that had the glass shelves) as well. Everything fell apart while unboxing. There is no way this can be shipped back once you open it all up. The flyer inside tells you to call their replacement parts line for defective items. Well, that's probably because there is no way to ship it back. I opened mine up and the top glass shelf was chipped on the corner and had the black peeling away from it. If that was the only issue, I would have just set it up anyways, and then asked for a partial refund or gotten the replacement and switched it out. But the wooden front of the stand was broken too. There is no way I can even put this together! It looks and feels cheap considering it is the whole front and is supposed to be a major source of bearing weight. The metal pieces all look fine and sturdy though. I would rather have had a metal front to it as well. Then maybe it wouldn't have been broken? Just an idea... I got this yesterday (on a Friday) and put today (Saturday) aside to set it up. Well, after the unboxing and finding out it is broken, it left me with a huge mess, something I cannot put together today, and a bedroom that is mass chaos from having everything moved around so I could put this together. Now I have to use my old dresser again, which means moving it, trying to put my old tv back onto it myself, and then a HUGE tv box in my room with a new tv that I cannot set up yet because the tv stand can't be set up. Tried calling for replacements as well. They are closed on weekends, of course. And the number they give you is not even for replacement parts, so you have to write down a new number and call that, and find out the voicemail is full and you can't leave a message. So I can't call back until Monday, replacements will take at least a few days to get here if lucky, so maybe by next weekend I might be able to set the stupid thing up. I would rather just send it back and get my money refunded if I could. But you can't! No box to send it back in, they want you to get replacements instead of returning the item. I wish I had never bought it. I should have gone with a different item I had been considering from another retailer instead. Bought this through a 3rd party retailer from Amazon, now I see it available from Amazon themselves. Wish it had been when I bought it last week, that might have made me feel better about my purchase instead of having to deal with Wayfair and Avista themselves. *** UPDATE *** I have to say that Wayfair was great to deal with, so don't worry about buying through them if you need to. Avista USA on the other hand, trying to get replacement parts from them has been a disaster! They took 3 days to end up telling me that they would just ship me a new unit. Great, but where is it? It was a week before Christmas by then and now the day after Christmas, I am still waiting for it. I emailed Sunday asking for shipping information, a tracking number or estimated delivery date... NOTHING! I have not heard from them since they last said they would ship me another. I am stuck at home waiting for a potential delivery so I don't miss it. They hardly talked in the emails, it was like I was texting someone. This was literally their last email to me: "Hi, We will just send out another Sovereign Plus to you. Thanks." It would take a day for them to get back to me after I had responded within minutes to their email. Now no email response at all! Horrible HORRIBLE customer service. I would suggest that you buy a different brand, or try to salvage the packaging so that you can return to retailer you buy it from if needed. They say on a piece of paper to get replacement parts from them instead, but you don't want to try and do that. It ruined my Christmas attempting this. I am still left with a broken stand, waiting for the new one and nothing to put my new tv on. *** Second Update 8/31/14 *** I thought I should update this again. It took a couple of weeks to get my replacement unit but I think that was also because it was during the Christmas rush and then took longer to ship due to the lag with UPS. I got it, and this time knew how to open it a bit better and did it in the hallway instead of my room. Took much less time, easier to clean up. Was still a pain though. I was able to set it up totally by myself (woman in her 30's), and it was pretty simple. I had a bit of trouble with the hanging of the tv as my tv came with it's own screws to hang it with but didn't seem to fit with the right length. Ended up finding the correct size needed in the packaging sent with the tv stand and used it. Just had my roommate help put it on the stand, then screwed the safety screws in. I used it for 5.5 months then moved, we just took the tv off and the shelves to move it. It stayed perfectly sturdy after moving this way, and we just put the shelves back on and tv. Has now been another 2 months and no issues. So 7.5 months total. I did use a bit of wood glue in the ridges between the pieces of wood where they connect on the front piece, then took a black sharpie to cover over the color of it. It is hard to notice and helped me think of it as being more sturdy, but was probably not needed. Overall, I actually REALLY like this tv stand and so I have raised my rating. I would give it a 3.5 stars if I could. The decrease in stars was for having the horrible experience with the first one shipped (-1 star) and then the not so quick and easy process of unpacking it (-0.5 star). *** Third Update 04/18/16 *** Ok, so I had to move and temporarily stayed with friends for a few months. I ended up leaving all my furniture behind as I only got a small storage unit. I'm now settling in at a new place and regretting that I didn't keep my tv stand. Yes, it was a pain dealing with the broken parts and then waiting for a new unit to ship (at Christmas). The unpacking of it was horrendous, but it really is a great tv stand once set up and you can put that experience behind you. Setup was fairly painless after the unpacking, and it was solid and good looking, as long as you dust well. My unit lasted me 2 years and could have lasted another several if I still had it. Only blemish was some slight scratches on the top shelf as it wasn't protected good enough during a move. I'm now needing a new tv stand and right back here on Amazon looking at this unit again. It's either this one or the Avista Numina. It's a toss up, the black metal looks good, it's slightly cheaper, it swivels up and down too, and a bit less wide. But I already know I love the Sovereign Plus and know it's not that hard to put together with the wood frame and "folding metal" parts. So I'm not sure yet which it will be, but it's 50-50 right now and both are by the same company. I'd say take the chance on this if you like it. I'm upgrading my star rating to 4.5 for the unit after completion (for both appearance and durability), 3 for the packaging/shipping, and 3.75-4 for customer service. Since I can only do whole stars, 4 stars it is.

This is a sturdy and good-looking stand that goes together quickly and easily. There is one minor error in the documentation - a part number is incorrectly notated - but it didn't matter because I ended up with the correct screws for the last step of the build. Lately some manufacturers are bagging/labeling parts separately for ease in assembly - Avista did that for this stand and it was an awesome touch. No need to get a magnifying glass out to try to tell what part the drawing refers to. A previous reviewer complained about the packing. I have no complaint. The fact that Avista managed to get three large pieces of glass from China to my door, with lots of stops in between, justified that packaging. In fact, I was intrigued by the packaging - it's intricate. Lots of small pieces of fiberboard and Styrofoam, etc. It must have taken a while to train the person who puts that package together. Here's the one thing you should think about before you buy it, though. Once it comes out of the box you aren't likely to get it back in for return shipping. Sending it back would be a real job! Avista will replace broken parts, so that won't (shouldn't) be a concern for you. But if for some reason you just don't like it ... good luck!

This item was promoted as easy set up with a fold out base- NOT. It required full assembly every piece and screw. More importantly there are serious design flaws in the parts of this item. The connecting screws have cheap plastic handles on one end so you can screw in without tools. Good concept except they are cheaply made so you cannot tighten fully. When trying to tighten or back out the plastic hand knobs strip so there is no way to tighten or replace the screws since you cannot remove them. In order to fix I am waiting on a series of replacement parts To be able to go back to assembly removing parts with real screws and then adding new parts, hopefully this will work, otherwise a full replacement item will be needed and I will need to start assembly from scratch. What a waste of time. Also, while nice looking from a distance the main front wood panel is thin and not even in color. The top heavy glass shelf simply rests on the top of rubber bumper guards is does not attach in any way. If some should try to move the stand say for cleaning behind it and lifts it from the top this piece will come off in their hands and probably break into pieces. I will write more once replacement parts arrive. This was not a cheap stand at almost $300. I would get something else for the money or buy something cheaper that would be the same quality as this stand. Trying to protect your investment of a 55" Samsung smart TV you may need to shop in person and then price compare at Amazon. One last thing the instructions were simply 2 pages of pictures no explaining,while I am experienced at furniture assembly those who are not may have a hard time. Definitely not a fold out base as advertised. Hopes this helps the next shopper.

Broken out of the box. The front wood piece is very fragile, arrived broken and unglued at the wood joints. I would have just wood glued it together, but several joining holes had split the wood fairly extensively. Frustrating that I couldn't set up the stand the day before my TV arrived & had to find a temporary alternative to set up the TV. Instructions say 'STOP - call us if something needs replacing'. I did - got someone who was covering the phone during lunch who couldn't outline the return process. Called back later, and was told to send them an email with details & a picture if possible. Hey Avista customer service - how about including that email process info on the instructions that say to call you??? It would save us both a step, and avoid extra frustration. Once the email was sent, there is no auto-reply confirming receipt, and no manual reply EVER with a confirmation, or shipping/tracking info, so it remains a mystery as to when you'll get a replacement. Since this was originally an Amazon Prime 2-day shipping item, it's really not cool to have to wait an extra week and a half to get the replacement. When it did arrive, they'd sent the entire unit for the Avista Sovereign unit, minus the glass, which comes with the metal side pieces already attached, unlike the Sovereign Plus model - instead of just the wooden front replacement piece. The wood joints were again coming apart, but with less splitting (still had some), so I took the time to wood glue the four joints and let it dry. After comparing the two metal back pieces to confirm they were the same size, I unfortunately used the newer replacement back piece from the Sovereign unit, only to realize there are extra screw holes in the Sovereign PLUS piece, for the TV tower, which of course makes sense, but was again extra frustration & time, avoidable by either just sending the replacement wooden part, instead of a whole other unit, which is slightly different that the model I ordered. Overall, now that it's done, I do like the look of it, I'm using it as a corner unit for a 47 inch flat screen mounted on the TV tower, and it has plenty of room for components. However, I'm not thrilled with the quality or potential soundness of the wood, or with the amount of time invested overall. If Avista could figure out how to strengthen those joints they wouldn't need to worry about improving the replacement process or the additional costs of replacement items.

The TV stand is awesome! Looks nice, very sturdy, very roomy. Building the thing was incredibly simple, too. No tools needed (all screws are hand screws) and it only took about 5 minutes. The stand's great; that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the packaging. The folks who designed this packaging must be some real sadists. I think this might actually be the worst packaging I've ever dealt with. Clearly, these guys need to have a meeting with Amazon's frustration-free team. Taking this thing out of its box took about 30 minutes. 30 FREAKING MINUTES to take it out of the box. Reminder: it only took about 5 minutes to setup the actual stand. Think about that. It's like when you see a really cheap item on an online auction and the shipping is horrendously expensive. That's the feeling I got after investing the time to get this thing unboxed and setup. Here's the worst part: this thing unleashes the ONLY dookie storm of styrofoam in your face. The minute you open it, you will get styrofoam bits flying out like crazy. Every time you pull out one of the styrofoam blocks, expect the block to fall apart in your hand into a shower of styrofoam flakes. Expect an explosion of styrofoam to follow you after you're done playing tug of war with the larger pieces. I'm pretty sure this thing didn't need to be that much of a PITA to unbox. I've unboxed 3 target bookcases not long ago, 2 of which were way bigger than this unit, and the packaging was so straightforward that I don't even remember it. After finally getting all the pieces out of their styrofoam prison, I looked like a freaking action movie hero at the end of the film when they're covered in dirt, except I was covered in styrofoam. Long story short: expect to spend your first half hour in a styrofoam filled rage, followed by another 10 or 15 minutes of vaccuuming and cleanup, followed by a final 5 minutes of very pleasant setup with the stand itself. At least the whole process ends on a good note!

I love this TV stand it's style . It's very sturdy strong material does not look cheap as if it wound break. Love the cherry wood and smoked glass. I love how it unfolds and pull out to set it up you need no tools at al. yes really no tools took me 20 minutes to set up my TV looks great on the stand just like the product sales picture. It's way worth the money. I have had it two months now no problems. The glass and wood make it heavy to move if your floor is carpet. but that's ok just have someone help you or remove the glass from the stand before you move it the glass is really heavy. I love it everything about this product it deserves more than five stars . Getting ready to order another one I'm very pleased and happy. Buy this stand you will not be disappointed at all .

I'm giving a beware alert. Items looks great, however I received promptly, revived before they stated, GREAT!! After I received I was on the phone 800 with the Avista,Company nice folks, told me where to go on the site to see parts bouchure. I pretty good when it comes to my hands, laid flooring, built table, cabinets.. WELL! I'm Stumped here. I don't believe the right screws (all number) fitted in the locations they claimed. It's a nice looking stand, however to hold a 55TV I need something a bit more sturdy that I could get this to be.. The metal frame doesn't fit flush to the wooden front nor did the back metal frame, the nuts wouldn't tighten to form a snug fit..Hopefully you'll have better luck than me.. I don't want to say it's not a good item I just had trouble assembling this unit, I'ver done hard wood flooring, plumbing, sort of a handy guy. MJW