Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

There is much to like about this unit. The package arrived in one large (and heavy) box. I used a handtruck to aid in bringing it into the house, then opened it and carried it to an upstairs bedroom in pieces. The instructions are fairly straightforward, with good pictures. All of the pieces are clearly labeled. I spent 1 hr, 45 minutes putting it together. A couple of times, I had to remove a part and turn it 180 degrees because I had not realized that I installed it backwards until I went to fasten something else. Once put together, the bed seems fairly sturdy, but when someone climbs the ladder, the whole structure shakes a little. The fasteners are allen-heads, and I had difficulty getting some of them to start threading. It takes patience. Once they are started, they thread right in. For certain stages of assembly, it may help to have a second person hold things in position while you get the fastener started. It is easy to strip out the allen-head of the bolts. It would have been better if they had gone with a torx-head. Installation of the slats is a longer-than-needed process due to their being a couple of hundred components (literally, not an exaggeration) in the assembly. In additional to sliding in the metal slats, of which there are plenty, you also have to snap in plastic connectors (3 per slat on the upper bunk, 4 per slat on the lower bunk). The good news is that if you ever disassemble the unit to move it to another location, complete disassembly is not required. You could probably disassemble it, move it to another room, and re-assemble it within a half-hour or so. Note that the top bunk has guard rails, but the manual says your mattress on that bunk should be maximum 6" thick. The physical appearance of the unit is fine. The packaging included foam and cardboard to prevent scratching during shipping. The bolt heads are black, so they do not really stand out amongst the black finish of the bars. On some of the more expensive bunk beds, the fasteners appear quite prominently, even at a distance. One negative that comes to mind is that the ladder's rungs are fairly thin, so a heavier child might find that to be painful. All in all, this seems to be a decent unit for the price. It was actually the cheapest twin-over-full bunk bed that we saw anywhere, and we shopped around. It doesn't look like the cheapest, though. The finish of the paint is more of a satin finish, which looks much nicer than I thought. I was expecting a cheap-looking glossy finish. One last thought: You can easily slide another 6" mattress underneath the lower bunk to use as an emergency sleeping arrangement for a guest, or for your kids' occasional sleepover. If you look for bunk beds with a trundle, they can be quite expensive, so you can satisfy the same occasional need just by sliding a mattress underneath this unit...like a poor man's trundle bed...