Bought this as a gift for Christmas and ended up putting it together with my Son in Law.  Piece of cake to build and had it operational inside 30 minutes.  Construction seemed pretty nice as far as the mantle is concerned. The fireplace works great and if you are a short distance away, seems pretty realistic.  Let's be honest, it's an electric fireplace, it's only going to be semi realistic in the first place but if you are OK with that, this is a very quality unit and was well priced.  It was delivered quickly (less than a week I think) and packaged well, no broken pieces.