Once the fireplace was assembled it made a nice compliment to the room. The finish is pretty good for pre-pack but I plan to re-paint the mantle in a shade better suited to our decor than the antique white. We have light colored carpet in the room that the fireplace now sits so we put a dark colored doormat-sized rug in front to mimic an outer hearth. This made the fireplace stand out more and finished off the look. It is wonderful to have the charm of fireplace without all of the mess and work that comes with the real thing. I chose gel fuel because I wanted a 'real' flame rather than a simulated red glow of an electric unit but the trade-off is the smell. To counter the smell I use candles or incense, which helps hide but doesn't completely cover the odor of burning gel. The problem with this unit was in the assembly. It uses the standard cam-lock & screw post fastening system found on much of the pre-pack furniture available. However, the holes for the screw posts were too deep and when the posts were fully tightened the cam-lock wasn't able to grab correctly. In the process of assembly I broke two of the cam-locks before I sorted out what was going on. Luckily, only one was completely ruined and there was one extra cam-lock; don't destroy two. This misalignment was a problem with all but one of the connections so in order to securely tighten the screw posts in way that allowed the cam-lock to function, I had to use small washers (not included) on the posts. The unit also uses wood dowels for assembly and after my trouble with the cam-locks I wasn't taking any chances with the stability of the unit. In addition to gluing the dowels, I placed a bead of glue along the full length of all the connections. Due to the limited number of cam-lock connections and that the dowels didn't fit tightly into their holes, I highly recommend generous use of carpenters glue. Lastly, the firebox is a bit smaller than the opening in the mantle, which created a small gap along it's top edge. To fix this I made a couple of wood shims and placed them between the firebox support frame and the underside of the firebox itself.

I bought this as a house warming present for my son and his wife. The new house didn't have the fireplace they had wanted. They are quite pleased with this one. My son was sceptical as to how it would look but thinks it looks great after we put it together. The size is nice. Some of the others we looked at were very small. It was very simple to put together. Delivery was fast and everything arrived in perfect condition. I also ordered the gel fuel. Overstock had the best pricing on that as well