Very happy with this purchase. I was hesitant to buy because of some of the negative reviews, but it turned out awesome. Took myself and my engineer dad 12 hours to assemble. That does not include the 2 hours it took me to unpack and organize all the materials by letter and number (I highly suggest doing this because you will know where each piece is at when you need it). We had no issues with cracked wood and the set is solid. I do not have long term results because it has not been up that long, but we plan on staining and sealing once a year like the instructions suggest to keep it maintained and looking great.