I'll start this off by giving people who've bought this or are thinking of buying this a bit of actionable advise on building this coffee table. Firstly, do step 10 and 11 before you do step 9. If you want to know why, scroll to the bottom. ALSO: This doesn't come with tools. I have tools, but I know a lot of people don't keep a toolbox. You'll need a Philips head screwdriver, preferably shorter/stubbier for certain sections that require a tight squeeze. A drill or driver will also make things a lot easier, especially the last step. This last step will also probably require two people - one to hold the top up while the second person does the drilling to attach the tabletop to the furniture.So... my instruction manual was not just out of order, but completely misprinted. I had to take the entire booklet apart and lay all of the sheets out to get the right order. Just something to be mindful of. Additionally, I was short 1 of the cam locks (the important ones that pull the pieces together). Typically they give you an extra of most of the important pieces, but I was left with two of the standard cam locks, a couple dowls and an extra short screw, but had to use a standard cam lock in place of the tightening cam lock. It should be fine, but it's just a small part of a pretty miserable construction experience.The constructions were then just poorly thought out. It's like they made all of the steps, printed them out, and then randomized them in sections. The 9-11 steps were the biggest offenders, but there were several other steps that when I was doing them I was like "This would be so much easier if I just reversed this..." I love building furniture, it is one of my masochistic kinks, but this experience was kind of brutal.Once it is together, it's fine. Just fine... okay... very slightly average. It's cheap, and so I guess you should expect an egregiously average piece of furniture. But what I will say, is that the raising mechanism is pretty bad. They are not attached in any way, so the two sides of the table top raise independently. This means if you pull it, one side is almost always going to raise at a different rate than the other side, leaving it a wobbly experience. You have to be very deliberate with the opening action. If you want to use this as a storage compartment primary, this will do you fine. But, if you want to actually use it as a functioning tabletop as seen in the pictures, to eat on or do work on on a semi-regular basis, I would probably find an alternative with a more thought-out device for the raising and lowering function.Hope this helps! If I have any updates on the actual usage of the table I'll add edits below.Addendum (Steps 9-11):Otherwise, you have to either 1. balance one long piece of wood on top of another piece of thin wood in a T pattern and drill into it, or you can set it on its side at this point, but because they tell you to put sideboards on one piece but not the other, one piece is about 2 inches too short and so I had to stack the styrofoam that comes in the box up under one to give it a similar height to align the holes.
