This desk is beautiful! It's a nice dark stain, real wood, weathering. It looks nicer in person even than the photos. It's also incredibly heavy - don't plan to carry it upstairs alone but then it ends up being super sturdy, so it's worth it. Assembly was not awesome -- the final steps of screwing in the pieces as a failsafe to keep them together were nearly impossible to do (the hole is so deep that you lose the screw and there's no pre-drilled holes to help out) and the instructions are laughable. It took way to long and we had to lift this thing up three times to shake out lost screws. It also smells terrible and will require a few days to air out. I still get a headache after sitting at it for a while, due to the fumes. One thing I wasn't prepared for is how high it is. Not quite standing-desk height but a few inches taller than any desk I've ever used or owned before. Chairs without the hydraulic height arm won't work unless you're really tall.