I needed a seating area right away for a very small kitchen by Thanksgiving, and asked my husband, (a skilled builder and fabricator), and a friend of ours, (whom is a skilled carpenter), to assemble this for me. It took them almost 5 hours to assemble with the very limited instructions. The dowels were supposed to be cut down to size yet the instructions failed to mention this. I thought we were getting a quality wood nook, but this is mostly made of partical board and is mediocre quality at best. I would not have purchased this product had I known the quality would be so poor. Was this made in China?  I don't recommend this purchase unless you're in a crunch, as I was. The only peace of mine I have is the warranty I purchased, which I will inevitably use because this thing isn't made to last. Also, the parts do not meet everywhere they're supposed to so there may be some improvising needed. Oh and you may need to purchase extra pieces because some were missing in our batch.