The bookcase arrived in one big box and had everything packaged nicely with styrofoam, so that no parts could get damaged. I found the instructions to be reasonable. It took about three hours to put together fully. One thing I did not like is how hard it was to drive some of the hard wear into the pre-drilled holes. The holes were about a millimeter smaller in diameter, so it required a lot of force to put in heard wear pieces in them. Otherwise, this bookcase was a great piece of furniture that can be used both as TV stand or as a shelf. It looks nice and stylish and was worth the work it took to build it.