I had not read any of the reviews on this particular chair but wish I had.  The chair was a surprise for my husband so when I saw that it had been delivered I immediately put it together (which was easy enough to do).  It was definitely very shiny and once I put it together and tested it out I found the footrest to be extremely difficult to get down just using my feet.  I decided to let him be the judge of it.  The first words out of his mouth were "it's awfully shiny, isn't it?"  I immediately called and scheduled the return.  Before dismantling the chair my two sisters also attempted putting the footrest down and found it very difficult as well.  Overall, I found the chair to be too shiny and it was difficult to manage the footrest.