It was an effort, and took a good bit of time to put this together, but for being half the price of any other full sized, solid wood loft bed on the market - it really was nothing. It's good quality, and my daughter loves it. The wood screws really require a power tool, and one of the holes had putty dried in it when we went in to put the caps on at the end, but a knife had it out without too much damage to the wood,  and the small damage was covered up by the cap in the end anyways.

As for it being shaky, we have it in a corner against two walls, it shakes a tiny bit when moving around up there, but it's what you'd expect from such a large bed being up on any stilts. Very solid, and very nice.