I read the comments by others before I ordered this item.  The comment is right regarding the difficulty of putting the tree together.  I did find that marking everything before assembly helped reduce frustration and speed up assembly.  The comment regarding the green leaves was right on.  The cats will have it shredded in minutes.  Over all my two cats love it and play on it daily.  My sister-in-law saw it and ordered it that day.  It is a good looking piece of furniture and I would recommend it to others; keep in mind that it is very large and I found it to be taller than I had thought (the cats love the height).