I bought two of these units on sale and they are great additions to my home; however, I had a problem with the dowels that were provided with the bookcase. There were two sizes and the short ones were still too long for the drilled holes. While trying to make the shelves snug up to each other, one of the dowels punched through the surface. I took some gardening scissors and cut all of the short dowels down and the bookcase went together well after that. I made sure I did the same to the second bookcase in order to avoid damaging the shelves. All in all, it is a great bookcase for the price and quite sturdy once it is put together. We are using them for our video games and accessories.