Love the appearance and quality of the desk.  It's heavy, drawers glide well, felt bottoms in side drawers, and unique appealing design with the legs.  It is a nice distressed grayish/brown as others have mentioned.  Woodgrain top, so would need a mat for writing.  However, dropping to 4 stars because there is not enough room for my legs under the center drawer without touching the underside of the center drawer (I'm 5'8") - making the keyboard tray useless (I've tried 2 chairs).  Height of desk is normal, but the drawer is just too high, reducing leg room.  Also, the bar across the bottom is direct center and it does indeed hinder foot room.  I'm going to keep it because I LOVE how it looks and too much of a pain to return, but functionally, due to leg and foot room, I would not have bought it if I had tried it out in a store.