The seat stays up by itself which is nice but the color of the wood is way darker than the photo. It's pretty much the same tone as the seat and looks like customer photos, not the product photo on website. Mine also showed up with a big fat fingerprint on the varnish finish lmao. 
I was really excited about the color of the wood which is why I give 4 stars (and the fingerprint) but the style is really nice and couldn't find a better bench for my taste.