We bought this for our son's second birthday and absolutely love it! It looks just as good as it does in the pictures online and was fairly easy to put together. We live in Florida so to protect it from the rain and sun I coated it with a wood protector that has a nice, glossy finish. We also have an 8 year old, 4 year old and a host of other neighborhood kids who all like to sit on the benches or play in the sand together. We filled it with about five 50 lbs. bags of sand.