I assembled this piece by myself in about two hours. The instructions were very easy to follow, although I did accidently put the back board on backwards as the instructions did not tell me to place the dark side towards the cabinets and pulling all 26 of those little nails about drove me mad...i guess if I had thought about it that could have been avoided. The piece is darker than shown. It's more of a blackish brown. I did not have any dings or scuffs like others. Although, being pressboard, there were some edges I touched up with a black sharpie and you couldn't tell. All in all, great price and exactly what I was looking for.