Fully Jarvis Reclaimed Wood Standing Desk Review

[Editors’ Note – April 21, 2023 – MillerKnoll, the $3B parent company of Fully.com, officially shut the company down on April 20th, 2023, after an 18-year run. Indeed, Fully’s phone lines and chat function have already been disabled, and the only way to reach customer service for product support is via email. We first reported this on March 8th after being notified by a number of Fully’s suppliers that the company was discontinuing operations.

Founded by ergonomics industry pioneer David Kahl in 2006, the company – which was originally known as ErgoDepot before a rebranding a few years ago – was acquired by Knoll. Knoll itself was shortly thereafter acquired by Herman Miller. This cataclysmic event is the latest in an ongoing set of challenges the industry has endured since the pandemic.

As a consequence of the company being wound down, we have taken down the scores for all of the Fully products we’ve reviewed to 0.5-star (including the Jarvis Standing Desk, Jarvis Standing L-Desk, Fully Jarvis Reclaimed Wood Standing Desk, Fully Jarvis Albright Standing Desk, Fully Jarvis Evolve Standing Desk, Fully Remi Standing Desk, Fully Jarvis Whiteboard Adjustable-Height Conference Table, Fully Jarvis Bamboo Adjustable-Height Conference Table, Fully Jarvis Tabletops For Standing Desks, Jarvis Monitor Riser, Jarvis Bamboo Desk Drawer, Fully Jarvis Single Monitor Arm, Fully Jarvis Dual Monitor Arm, Fully Jax Single-Display Monitor Arm, Fully Floatdeck Balance Board, Fully Sidekick Mobile File Cabinet, Fully Cable Management Kit and Fully Cable Management Tray). Fully has sadly been added to the Office Fitness Industry Dead Pool.

Ostensibly, Fully’s, “most popular products,” i.e. those that they still have a lot of inventory remaining, are being offered through the Herman Miller and Design Within Reach websites. We checked these listings and they are at full list price, unlikely to be purchased by any savvy shoppers. The nearest alternatives to Fully products are going to be found at iMovR (American-made) and UpLiftDesk (similar Chinese-made products). For more details on the company’s closure, see our article on Is Fully.com Out Of Business?]

This is going to be an abbreviated review as Fully appears to have finally quit trying to source reclaimed wood tops for their standing desks altogether. If they bring it back, we’ll re-test the product in our labs and update this review, but that doesn’t appear to be the company’s plan, at least according to the sales representative we spoke with.

See our separate review on the Jarvis standing desk and our highly-researched primer on reclaimed wood desk tops.

Years of failed attempts…

There are several standing desk outfits still promoting reclaimed wood types, mostly sourced in China, but arguably the progenitor of the category was Fully. As such, they have had repeated difficulties with getting their tops to maintain their integrity, and we heard rampant user reports of cracking and warping of these tops after they were continually sent up and down on a standing base with all of their associated torqueing forces.

We discovered all this by noticing that the listings on Fully’s website for reclaimed wood standing desks suddenly weren’t working. After inquiring with the company, they took the listings down a few days later, though remnants of its prior presence remain, including a claim that “Each of our reclaimed wood and hardwood desks is sealed with conversion varnish that makes them water and stain resistant for lasting durability against everyday wear and tear as you work.” Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but we wrote years ago that this was going to be inevitable. Reusing old lumber with inconsistent character and unknowable prior history on something like a sit-stand desk with variable loading on it was just never a good idea.

We dive into this subject in full detail in our article on reclaimed wood desk tops, which we highly recommend reading if you’re in search of a reliable reclaimed wood tabletop for your standing desk. Spoiler alert: the only durable, reliable, consistent product that will give you the look and feel of reclaimed wood without the risk of stability failure (i.e. warping or cracking) is a 3D-laminated reclaimed wood desktop with EIR texturing from iMovR. If you love the look and still really want it, go with the 3D technology that carries a 15 year warranty and doesn’t have any of the stability and durability issues.

…Before giving up entirely

In our research we found out that warranty replacements nearly put their first vendor, Rocket Mission, out of business. The vendor eventually backed out of the deal. According to that vendor, it was hard to find consistent quality of lumber considering how reclaimed wood is actually sourced. Often tops would crack or warp even before leaving the factory.

The last vendor Fully used, Veridian Wood — out of the same home town of Portland, Oregon — gave up the ghost in 2022. They were also Fully’s supplier for much of their hardwood table top offerings, according to the company. Fully says that a new vendor is currently being sourced for those hardwood tops. We have no idea what issues caused Veridian to shutter their lumber mill after 17 years in business, but it’s not inconceivable that the issues with producing reclaimed wood table tops consistently and reliably might have had something to do with it.