They look beautiful flanking our ivory sofa next to an exposed brick wall. The size and price are fantastic, and it wasn't too hard to assemble. MY ONE COMPLAINT (and this is huge) - there aren't borders on the sides of the shelves (besides the top) so we had to spend $$$ to get bookends for each shelf. They're sturdy enough to hold a ton of books on each shelf... if only they wouldn't fall off! At this point we've spent more on bookends than on the shelves themselves! Very very very dark brown, basically black "wood"