The mocha is much darker than in the picture, it is pretty much the color of the black handles it comes with -much much closer to black than a dark shade of brown. The instructions are not easy, just pictures and bags of hardware. It's very hard to tell what side you should be using in the beginning because you don't know which side will end up. Once you get the first few pieces together you start to figure it out. I built it by myself and it was definitely a challenge. Do yourself a favor and use two people. And build it where you will be using it. The box is so heavy it sat on my porch until I could carry it all in piece by piece to build it. It was packed very well though to prevent damage. Overall it's a nice piece for the money. It looks nice, drawers slide in & out well. Just be warned of how hard it was to put together. it took me 4 hours by myself and I am the one my friends call to do this, I'm usually pretty good at it.