All said and done, its a beautiful book shelf. The color is beautiful, its not so short that it doenst have enough space and not so tall that you cant reach anything. The directions are some of the easiest ive seen. Everything is labeled and easy to understand/ read. I gave it 4 stars though because one of the shelves had a small chip in it. I didnt notice it until it was almsot fully together, or i would have exchanged it. Rhe packahing seemed okay. Styrofoam to protrect the outside of it, but sll thr peices were touching and packed tightly into the center. Its worth the money, id definitely recommend this :)

Nice sturdy shelving unit

The quality of this is good for the price. Its a very nice piece of furniture. We bought it for my daughters bedroom to display some of her knick knacks but I could certainly envision this in other rooms. The only reason for 4 stars not 5 was the assembly. While most wasn't difficult, the very first two steps were hard. You have to assemble the sides putting together two longer pieces. One piece has two wooden dowels sticking out of it and you have to put the dowels inside holes of the other piece. This was not easy. Its a very tight fit (which it probably is intentional, so once the pieces are together they stay together. Halfway through the first step the dowels cracked in two leaving half of the pieces inside the holes. We were discouraged and tried to call customer support. No one answered. So we used the glue that came along and proceeded to put the pieces together, broken dowels and all. It worked and once all the shelving was in place it felt very sturdy.

The walls in our new house are painted a light gray, so I chose the gray color for the shelf. The shelf is darker than the walls and makes a nice contrast to the lighter paint. One suggestion, apply the glue in the carton (or the new non-foaming Gorilla Glue) to the plugs in the side rails and allow it to dry before moving on with putting the shelf together. It makes the side rails more sturdy so you can move forward with putting it together. Also, lay the pieces on the floor while constructing it. If you put it together on a table and try to pick it up you can have problems. Other than those suggestions, putting the shelf together is quite easy.. All pieces are marked well and the directions are easy to follow. I love this shelf.