Elizabeth C.

Summary: This "full size" bed is not the correct size for a full size mattress. It is 6 inches too wide! Also, the "gray" color is actually taupe, not gray at all. Hayneedle has terrible/non-existent customer service. No response to customer service emails.

Full review: The real problems started on delivery day. I had a 4 hour window blocked off 10-2. When 2:30pm rolled around and I had no delivery, I called customer service because I thought I was going to have to cancel the order because I had to leave the house (signature was required and I wanted to check the product anyway). 10 minutes after I got off the phone, the... um... "delivery" truck arrived. Hayneedle uses the worst/cheapest shippers around. They actually showed up in an Enterprise rental truck! Is this a real delivery business?!?!? The two shipping boxes were in terrible shape, which made me very nervous, but luckily the pieces inside were not damaged, despite having the surface visible through the box and packing material. Pure luck.
The next day, my husband and I spent about an hour putting the bed together, and were really happy with the instructions, quality of the materials, and the overall look of the bed. The wood was heft and solid, and the overall design looked pretty. I was a little disappointed in the color, since I was expecting actual "gray" not taupe, but since I had not purchased any other furniture to match it yet, I figured it wasn't a deal-breaker and I could make it work. The major problem occurred when we lifted our full size mattress and put it on the bed slats. There was an extra 6 full inches on the end of the bed, and a 2 inches on the side! I could not believe that wasn't mentioned in ALL of the other reviews! I could see down to the bed slats and the floor; it looked awful. There was no way I was going to pile up fluffy bedding to "cover-up" this issue. This bed is meant for the FULL XL mattress, not a regular full size! This is especially concerning for those who are buying this for a toddler/little kid transition bed (which we did). This extra space is dangerous for the little ones, because they can get their head wedged in there, or get a limb stuck (and then fall over and break something). We could not put our child to sleep on this, so I thought I was going to have to return the whole thing... and since the shipping boxes and packing material were destroyed (partially by the shippers), this was going to be a BIG P I T A. I emailed Hayneedle customer service immediately to see what they could do - was this an anomaly?... could they have the correct size pieces shipped?... No response. Still dead air...
So I turned to google and amazon... I found that I could buy a full XL size mattress protector that wraps around the whole bed and fill the extra 6 inches with chair foam padding (luckily we have a foam mattress, not a spring, so hopefully this won't be too noticeable). Of course, I have to buy all of these things and do the extra work... but at least I can fix the problem. I now also have to buy Full XL sheets to fit. So now I'm spending at least another hundred dollars, and doing a lot of extra work for a bed that costs well over six hundred dollars. So disappointed in Hayneedle. What a shame. I cannot recommend Hayneedle for a good experience or a reliable product description.