This chandelier is absolutely gorgeous!  It took me about 5 hours to put the pieces together, but I did not find it difficult to follow the directions.  It was fun for me.  My husband wired it, he hung it 4.5 feet off the floor, and then I spent an enjoyable afternnon putting the crystals on it, after which point he finished raising it up to the ceiling.  I was missing one string of crystals, but I had enough parts to reconstruct it.  This is heavy glass, it does not look cheap and it's not plastic.  It's very very bright, so I would get lower wattage bulbs than we bought, or I would definitely put it on a dimmer switch.  It looks so beautiful from the outside of the house too.  We have a little more work to do on this room, but I felt it might be helpful for people to see more "whole room" photos in the reivews so they can get an idea about the size.  This room is 16 x 14 with a 9 foot ceiling. I could not be more pleased with this.