It was pretty easy to put together and looks nice in the living room hallway. The pillow is extremely hard - it still feels like I am sitting on wood which to me defeats one of the main reasons to have a pillow. The smell was quite bad/strong for a few days. It also came with one piece broken off. Luckily it was not a visible piece and it was an easy fix, I just glued and hammered that piece back on but it was still pretty frustrating to have to deal with it. I do appreciate the higher weight capacity on this bench though - some of the benches I looked at were only 150lbs. I'd hate to have to warn my friends or post a weight warning - especially if two people wanted to sit on it.