The platform is a really nice rich warm stained wood. The box it came in was around 50ish pounds and easy to pick up and move minus going up the stairs to the bedroom (for reference I'm 5'3" and the box was around 8ft). You DO NOT need a box spring which is a bonus if you're purchasing everything all at once. The frame took me between 20-25 minutes to put together and didn't need a second person nor did I need to call customer service to explain the directions as they're straight forward.