This bed took my son and I about and hour to assemble. It was pretty straight forward. It has a nice clearance below in case you want to slide something under it, but we are leaving it open and free. Despite the clearance, the bed doesn't sit very high off the ground at all. This is good if you have small dogs like I do so they can hop on and off from it without much trouble. The bed is sturdy and supports a mattress just fine. I decided to purchase a 'bunky board' which is a low profile box spring, essentially. That improved the overall comfort of the mattress to some degree. I would recommend purchasing some kind of low profile box spring. Keep it low profile or you nearly defeat the purpose of getting a bed with a low headboard. This is a great bed for minimalists or someone just looking for an inexpensive frame that is sturdy and should last a long time with proper care. Tools required to assemble is a simple hex wrench which they provided.