I am so happy with this bed! It's so beautifully made, and sturdy too! The color in the picture has a brownish purplish hue to it, but in person it's a charcoal grey! It comes in 2 large boxes, I had help putting together, and it maybe took us 30 mins to assembly! So extremely easy! The specs say no box spring required, but I used my box spring anyways, and it's perfect! The backing of the bed is so high, (just as tall as I am, 5'2) it looks like it's meant to have a box spring. So I would recommend using one, plus it only comes with 4 support beams, so your bed will sagg if you don't use one!