First of all, we purchased professional assembly to avoid the headache laid out by other reviewers, but that did not come through, so zero stars there. We begrudgingly got to work on this table ourselves, even though we were tired of assembling furniture for our new home (all of which were much easier to put together than this table). The other reviewers aren't lying: These instructions are particularly heinous and vague. Be careful how and where you hammer in the male/female pieces in your leaf and tabletop. It's easy to misread, and difficult to rectify if you mess up. TL;DR: The table looks great NOW, despite the most ridiculous assembly instructions and losing several hours of my life.