Pottery Barn Kids Catalina Magazine Rack

By Booya Gadget

Came home today to find out latest order for our baby girl had arrived on our front step. So let's setup and review the Pottery Barn Kids Catalina Magazine Rack.

The wife had picked this children’s magazine rack out on Sunday night and by Wednesday morning it was at our door step.

Pottery Barn Kids Catalina Magazine Rack review delivered booya
Catalina Magazine Rack delivered

Our daughter is now 16 months old and for some time now books have been a high priority.  She is constantly pulling the books out, asking anyone nearby to read it and then returning to her constantly growing pile of books to make another selection.  Her play area has over-run by these books and this weekend it became apparent that something had to be done.

So in stepped the Pottery Barn Catalina Magazine Rack.  This book shelf is 36” Wide x 4” Deep and 29.5” High.  It will be hung on the wall and allow for all the books to be neatly organized on the wall.  Easily displayed for our daughter and a better arrangement for those who are trying to walk through her play area.

Pottery Barn Kids shipped the magazine rack fully assembled.  After opening the box and inspecting the item I am happy to report that packaging was well done and the item was in perfect shape.  Made of MDF the shelf is fairly easy enough for one person to carry, but heavier than I thought..  Hanging the shelf on the wall can easily be a one person job, Pottery Barn gives you a template to tape to the wall to locate the screws.  All hanging items should come with this feature.

Installation

Once installed it was time to put it to use.  Since pictures can be deceiving I was curious how many books this magazine rack could actually hold.  All told it could hold 20 of her children books.  Since the rack is 4” deep you are able to set a select number of toys on the top and use it as a shelf.  Our Booya Gadger readers may notice the limited edition UK launch Sackboy sitting perched atop the shelf.

Pottery Barn Kids Catalina Magazine Rack review BooyaGadget
Catalina Magazine Rack installed
Safety

Safety is an important issue when it comes to small children.  As a first time parent I probably lean towards the more worry-some side of the spectrum.  There is no doubt that this rack could be used for climbing and pulling and obviously the two tiny screws and their mollys are not going to be able to withstand that type of abuse. After much thought we chose to hang the shelf out of our daughter reach.  The bars that hold in the books are nice, but they could easily be snapped off by constant tugging.  Since the shelf hangs from two screws located at the top of the shelf it is way to easy to pull the bottom of the shelf away from the wall.

If you were interested in getting this piece so that your child could select their own books then I would suggest you wait until they are older.  If you notice we chose to put some of her nice, big books in the shelf so it is only housing 9 books at the moment.  You could easily get more books in there and there is room to place books behind one another.

Final Thoughts

The Catalina Magazine Rack is a great bookshelf.  Overall I am extremely happy with the book shelf.  It serves a great purpose and it looks amazing.  The wife and baby are also big fans.