The dollhouse is much larger than I thought it would be, when it arrived I was shocked at the size of the box and put off assembly for a few weeks. When I opened the box I was relived to find half of it taken up with the furniture and packaging. The pieces are well made but there are a lot of them! I would estimate at least 40 pieces, not counting screws or furniture (the furniture is all completely assembled). None of the pieces have that 'made in china' smell that many new toys seem to suffer from. The roof pieces have a faint smell similar to finger paint (the wood in plan toys items is stained with a food grade dye rather than painted).Assembly was not overly difficult but did take a solid two hours to accomplish by myself. Someone who is handy or uses a drill rather than a screwdriver could likely assemble it much more quickly. All that is need to put it together is a phillips head screwdriver and some patience. The instructions are complete but use only pictures. Many of the pieces look very, very similar so attention to the detail on each piece in the diagrams is needed.The house overall is significantly lighter than I expected. It's still a large, heavy toy but each piece can be lifted by my four year old. The two halves are not connected which allows the kids to be creative with the layout and play with the same toy at the same time without getting in one another's way although one side is larger than the other so they have to take turn with the 'better' side. I really like the lack of distinguishing features on the walls. Unlike many dollhouses the rooms are all plain and very similar in size and shape so what was a bedroom yesterday can be a kitchen today.I only gave three stars for several reasons. The dolls, or lack thereof; I had assumed it would come with at least a few dolls but they need to be purchased separately. The furniture is ok but is incomplete. For example, there is a stove, sink, and fridge but no table. How can the dolls eat the food they prepared? It doesn't seem like an issue until your six year old gets upset because her dolls are hungry and need a place to eat. At this price I would have expected a complete furniture set and dolls. The paint; every other plan toy we own is stained but this doll house has some painted parts. The roof; the picture shows a yellowish color but in reality it is a bright safety cone orange. I'm not sure why they choose this orange and lime green color scheme, I would have much preferred something more subdued. The living room furniture; I purchsed this particular dollhouse because it seemed gender neutral but what you can't see in the pictures is that the couch and chairs for the living room are painted white and have hot pink cushions. The living room is more 'Barbie's dream house' than 'natural chalet dollhouse'.The big issue with the dollhouse was the two doors that go on the back of the house. These two doors are either too big or the holes for them were drilled in the wrong spot because they don't fit and are unusable. I plan on contacting Amazon regarding this but have a feeling they will want the dollhouse shipped back and I really don't want to have to put in several more hours disassembling and reassembling.Overall, I would not buy it again.A few tips:- watch the price for a few weeks if you have the time, I was able to get it for almost $50 less than the normal price but it took nearly a month for the price to drop and it went back up within the day- use google to search for images of the dollhouse and look for one with children in the picture, it will give you a much better idea of the size than the dimensions listed