In fairness, I did read everyone’s commentsreviews before I bought this. In hindsight, most of the people who gave it 5 stars had someone else handy put it together! Unless you know enough to be comfortable improvising with additional hardwaretools, I wouldn’t recommend this. Yes, there are missing steps in the instructions. There are also screw holes that don’t fit the screws so pieces are loose if you don’t have your own longer screws. I’m not a newbie at this… am a carpenter’s daughter and have assembled most of the furniture I own.  All that being said, if you can get it together eventually, it’s a really handy piece to have in the kitchen. We desperately needed more counter and storage space and this does the trick! It’s also very pretty.