Southern Enterprises Cartwright Convertible Electric Fireplace, Mission Oak Finish with Earth Tone Tiles

I should have listened to the few bad reviews about the shoddy craftsmanship of this product; it would have saved me a lot of time and hassle of trying to put this together and then repacking and returning. Honestly I have no idea why this has so many good reviews. Maybe I'm old fashioned but for this price range I expect much better. If I had seen this at the store there is no way I would have bought it - even at half the price. I understand that the firebox itself is worth about $200 but I would not have paid that much for it if I had seen it in person.Ok, now to the point- so this had MULTIPLE problems: false advertising, firebox was either broken or loud, and the mantle itself came from the factory damaged and very poorly made. I'll go over each problem encountered and also indicate where I have pictures.False Advertising, Broken or Loud Firebox: The firebox was advertised that the embers would pulsate to create a realistic effect- they did not do this. The fire was also advertised as dying out slowly when you turn it off - it also did not do this. Not only did it not die out but it made a loud thump when it was turned off.. so much for using it quietly in my bedroom with a timer to turn off after I'm asleep. The flame did not appear realistic unless it was on the lowest setting for both the flame and embers. If it was on a higher setting it lit up the back of the fireplace which had a cutout of flames and looked extremely fake. I've read other reviews that people have seen worse flames so I don't know how bad it actually is since I haven't seen a lot of electric fireplaces in person. The only other one I've played with was one my parents bought (for the same price as this) that had a Spectrafire flame. Although it didn't look extremely real either it looked A LOT better than this one. I could have lived with all of these things but the deal breaker was the noise it made when just the fire mode was running. I understand that the heater has a fan noise so I expected that but what I didn't expect was the loud humming noise made by the fire mode. My parent's spectrafire electric fireplace doesn't make a noise like this.Damaged/ Poorly Made Mantle: The firebox aside this is where the problems REALLY started. I'm so upset about how poorly made this was considering the price it was selling for. First of all I took people's advice and had the vacuum ready when I opened it- I'm glad I did because there were tiny pieces of styrofoam everywhere. This wasn't a problem- what was a problem was that every board had a thin layer of grease/dirt on it. This is the first piece of assembly furniture that I had to literally wash every board before using and my hands were black from handling them. You can see the layer of grease/dirt clearly on the wooden dowels that they sent to pin things together (pictured). I've put together a lot of assembly furniture and I've never received dirty disgusting wooden dowels. Many of the boards had chips (pictures)- this was packaged well and the packaging was not damaged during shipment so this was packaged like this AT the factory. This is where I should have paid more attention to other reviewers with this problem. I ignored them because of all the good reviews- and thought how bad could it be? I'll just use a marker. Well this would have taken a lot of markers. Also, one of the panels had a strip of coating peeling off the edge. This really bothered me because if this is already stripping off when it's new how is it going to look in 4-5 years? Many of the boards didn't fit together exactly straight (pictured) because the supplied holes were slightly off center- this caused a major problem later that I'll get to. The decorative piece did not match up on the corners (pictured)- it's not that it didn't align- it's that it was a different on each piece- literally didn't match. The "stones" had between 1/16" and 1/8" gaps between them- from far away it looked ok but up close it did not. One of the screws holes broke (pictured) exposing the crappy horrible particle board this is made out of. Also, this happened WHILE I was screwing the screw in- it was not even tight yet- so this wasn't from over tightening. I was being very careful not to over tighten screws because of comments from other reviewers about the crappy wood. At this point I don't even know why I was still trying to put this thing together- I guess a part of me really DIDN'T want to go through the hassle of sending it back so I was debating what to do. The thing that sealed the deal was when I tried to put the top on it did not fit because of the misalignment of some of the boards. I would have had to take it a part and try to realign the boards and hope it fit after doing this. I ended up taking it a part and packing it back up to ship back.This is one of the first pieces of furniture I've bought online and it was a horrible disappointment. I was SO excited to receive this and it has turned into such a disappointment and hours of wasted time- not to mention all the time waiting around for the delivery. Normally I only buy furniture that I've seen at the store but there was a lack of electric fireplace mantles at the stores here-most of them are entertainment centers (which I didn't want) or those cheap free standing stoves. So, I thought I'd take the risk and it did NOT pay off. I ended up ordering a different one from a different company that didn't have any bad reviews relating to shoddy craftsmanship for about $100 more. So I'm hoping it is better- if it's not I may just order a firebox and build my own mantle. What a horrible experience...The other thing I noticed is that Amazon is selling used versions of this that are "expected" to be in stock next week- makes me think they get a lot of returns of this item..

There are many reviews on this item, so I probably don't have anything new to add except for one thing- Several people talk about the need to glue the dowels in place. That's not needed. I think some folks think those dowels are for structural integrity. They are only "locating dowels" and nothing more than that. They are used to help keep things in alignment while you are in process of assembly and while using glue will certainly help strengthen the overall finished product, you really do not need to do that. One thing I would suggest is that when you unpack this unit, you have a dust cloth and furniture polish at the ready, and take each individual piece and dust it off before you bring it to the place or room you are assembling the unit. I say this because there is a tremendous amount of "factory dust" all over everything and this is a product made in China, so who knows what's all in that dust. We didn't want that all in the air and the carpet in our home, and it's easy enough to clean up beforehand. We opened the boxes in the garage and took each piece up to the bedroom individually after polishing them up and this really cuts down on the mess. There is a lot of styrofoam packing and scraps and such, so we were able to keep it all outside.As for the actual assembly, it was very easy, but we ran into one minor snafu- they didn't drill out a couple holes for the aforementioned dowels on one of the parts, but this was easy to overcome. The screws are a little bit short and you have to be very careful when tightening them on the final assembly step, as it's very easy to strip the wood by over-tightening. Once we got it all together, we fired it up and it's pretty much what we were expecting and we love it. It looks very nice and it supports our 42" TV just fine. The fireplace itself is pleasing to the eye, the blower is quiet and it's a nice addition to our home.

I love my fireplace! I just got it last night, and with the help of some wood glue and my electric screwdriver/drill thing, it went right together! I am a 120lbs 34 year old woman and did it by myself. I did take a break half way through :) The mantle is a lovely quality, except for the front molding pieces which are plastic and mine came with a small paint flake off leaving a tiny piece of exposed white plastic. Otherwise, this is a super quality piece of furniture. It is large too! I posted a photo showing my ceiling which is 10 feet tall so you can get an idea of how large this actually is. I don't personally like Oak but ordered it because my home is packed with oak woodwork and paneling, and the color fits right in! It came just in time for Chicago snow too! The thermostats function seems really nice :) but I don't think I'll need to use it. The flames are not as realistic as some other electric fireplaces, but not enough to drive me nuts. And my doggie already loves sleeping in front of it :)