The instructions are not bad - but a wee bit vague on a couple of points. You also need to screw screws into wood which is not pre-drilled so having a drill around rather than trying to use a screw driver was a good idea. Otherwise the bed looks nice! The way the boxspring sits in the base, it's hard to get the mattress to sit exactly on top of it. My mattress sticks out a couple of inches past the end of the box spring at the foot of the bed