I was pleasantly surprised by the Jamel coat rack. It comes with a sparse assembly booklet that was a little baffling at first but after looking things over it is pretty clear what you have to do. To unpack the parts, look over the instructions, and then assemble the unit it took me 2 hours total, working alone. Things went together nicely. They supply the Allen wrenches for putting together most of it, but you'll have to have a medium Phillips head screwdriver for the rest. The shelves are faux wood in a splotchy 'aged' finish, and look just like the pictures online. The unit looks nice and is sturdy. Right now we have two winter coats, a jacket, a backpack, and my purse hanging on it, no problems. The shelves are handy for keeping miscellaneous stuff on, like gloves, hats, etc.