Our 4 year old has jumped on this for half hour each night  for a month.... still looks like new!  We'll built, beautiful, the inside is HUGE fie storage. We have 6 throw pillows and two blankets in there plus two TV trays, all fitting comfortably.  The hinges are on a piston-type system where the thing goes up slowly and comes down slowly. The color looks very dark, could be misconstrued as black in some dark rooms.  Looks and feels like real leather.