Assembly was easy and the bed is cute. I wanted to decorate it otherwise the entire top of the "house" structure seems to take up unnecessary space. It is true that a standard twin size bed leaves a bit of a gap. I have added a wedge pillow (not pictured) to cover it which also makes for a nice reading space. We spent days looking at beds for our 2.5 year old and finally landed on this one and are happy with it.