It's a beautiful bed! Sturdy and easy to climb on for kids! It took around 4 hours for my husband to put it together. We are using 6" mattresses. It has enough headroom for me 5'3" to sit on the lower bunk to read a book. The 2 things I did not quite liked is smell and dead space in staircase. Today is the 5th day we have it and the smell of paint is still pretty strong. And what about the staircase...I wish there were a storage or shelves instead of empty and closed cases of stairs... In general, I feel satisfied with this purchase and confident in safety of my kids.