When I first saw it, I didn’t think it would be very sturdy. As we assembled it, I realized how many reinforcing features it had. They were a real pain to put in place at times but they also make the structure much more stable. Because of the layout of our kid’s room, we had to assemble the bed with the lower bracing bar towards the center of the room rather than towards the wall. The only thing I wish is that there had been alternate assembly instructions for that. We also highly recommend some sort of cushion on the rungs of the ladder.