As the other reviews shared, the instructions are not terribly helpful and you WILL need two people to put this together. The wood is actually very sturdy and as long as you hammer the wooden dowels in all the way, the pieces fit together nicely. The only reason I'm not giving this four stars is because of the Allen's wrench. You have about 20+ screws to hold this shelf together and the allen wrench provided is almost too small to even hold onto. We were able to screw in all but the LAST screw....so I have one that sticks up about a half inch higher than it should, but i think if I paint it white, it will look ok.  I'm using it as a divider between my bed and couch in my studio apartment and it makes a great statement without blocking any light.