I have purchased furniture (Bed, book shelves, etc) and put them together with the tools that come with them and there was no problem. This desk was different. It came with wooden dowels and glue to hold it together. After laying it all out and getting things lined up we started to glue all of the dowels in place piece by piece. Then as we lined up the pieces and pressed them together we discovered that the dowels were too long and needed to be cut shorter. I thought maybe we had made a mistake and just hadn't pushed them into their holes far enough so I called a friend who is a woodworker and he had the same problem. He had to bring over some tools including a saw and clamps to get the project done. The desk fits well in the space I bought it for but if I had known I was going to spend an entire day putting it together and had to have a handy man to get it done as well, I would have looked for another option.