This bench is beautiful and solid.  It looks classy and elegant, not cheap or flimsy at all.  There was 1 tiny crack when we received it, but it looks like it's more in the paint, not the actual bench.  It's nothing that concerned me at all.  I bought this in grey and it's a grey that leans toward the lavender side of things, but that's not noticeable with the paint color we have it against.  It's definitely a grey bench, not lavender.  It just had lavender undertones.  You can play around with color combos to get it to bring out more or less of that.  I get compliments on this bench all the time.  LOVE it.