I bought this for use in a daycare. My assistant and I put it together, but it took a few hours. I have a lot of experience with putting furniture together, and even designing/building some of my own, but the final sections were hard to put together. I ended up having to loosen most of the screws and shift the cubbies several times, in order to get the back and top sections in place.Once fully built, the unit was pretty solid and stable. It can hold a fair amount, both in the large cubby areas and on top of the unit. The smaller sections, which are meant to hold papers, pencil cases, folders, etc, are also a nice size, but its wooden base/shelf is relatively thin. Even so, it can support several large paperbacks (teacher resources -300 pages each), but I don’t know about heavier items. Also, if kids pull on the thin shelves, or put a lot of their weight on them while trying to reach for higher items, the shelf will start to bow/bend under the weight (the kids weighed 33-45 lbs).In order to prevent the cubbies from tipping over or falling, connect it to the wall using furniture supports/tie-ons. One piece of advice- you won’t be able to attach it to the backing of the cubbies, as the material is too thin. Attaching it to the thicker wooden boards (the dividers or under the top edge of the cubbies) will work just fine.