This coffee table came at a great price, (a similar one by West Elm would have been over $700) but you can tell that the quality suffers a bit when you don't pay for a higher end piece. The wood portion can look cheap upon close inspection. Maybe others won't notice it so much, but I do. The wood pieces are also only one sided and have a cheapy sticker type finish on the backside (although no one would ever see that). It looks really nice put together and it functions very well. It took us about 2 hours to put it all together. Nitpicking, I wish that there were little hand holds on the lifting portion of the tabletop. You kind of have to have a grip on both ends to get it to lift. Ultimately we have young children and I didn't want to have a super nice piece that could be damaged by kids. If I didn't think it would be in danger at all I would probably save my pennies to get a higher end table, but that can just be my own personal preference.