I ordered this with a coupon so It was such a great deal. It's a nice quality heavy wood and when I finished assembling it, it had that new wood smell, hard to come by with furniture these days. It's called charcoal, but I found it to be more of a taupe with brownish greenish tones. It took me about 3 hours to put together alone, but I'm used to flat packed furniture so I really didn't mind. I must warn of one thing during assembly. The pedestal legs are anchored by a screwed in metal base. Do not screw these on too tightly or else it will pull the screws out of the metal base and cause the legs to break off easily. Also, with any heavy piece of furniture that has pedestal legs, you should never tip the weight onto the legs. This will also cause the legs to break off, as another reviewer described. This has nothing to do with the quality of the furniture, it's just a law of physics. If you keep these in mind, you will love the final product. I did!