Let me start by saying that I'm very handy with tools-I designed and built our padded Cal King headboard by myself.  I've put together many pieces of furniture in my adult life, for myself and even for others because I'm good at it and enjoy it.  This unit was a bear to put together. The runners for the drawers are plastic and impossible to hammer into the holes without cracking them. I think you need a rubber mallet to really do it right, which as an apartment dweller, I just don't have. I spent half a morning trying to put it together and had to give up.  I finally took it over to a friend who has a full workshop and he told me, "That thing is almost aggressively badly designed." I think in this case you do get what you pay for.