Okay, here's the saga of how this went together for me. First, I thought the packaging was pretty good, and as you can see in the 2nd picture, the plastic around each part was labeled with the part code. I noticed and appreciated that the ends of all the pipes were finished with a slight curve inward, so it was easier to put the parts together. At first I was baffled by the lack of one of the parts, until I discovered that the silver piece was packed inside a black piece, as showning the 4th picture. Later I found that was mentioned on the diagram, but it wasn't very obvious. The 5th picture shows the assembled rack... and the 6th picture shows what I found when I came back after a couple hours. As for the actual assembly process, I found the crosswise pieces went together fairly easily, and the uprights fit into their sockets without too much trouble. However, the base, with the 4 horizontal pieces, was a real bear. The "fit & finish" of the joint where the horizontal black pieces go into the 2 bases wasn't very good. Having been warned about that by other reviewers, and then finding it out for myself, what I did was get a can of spray lubricant (sorry, don't have it right in front of me, but it said "plastic safe") and a rubber mallet. First I sprayed a little bit of the lubricant in each of the sockets in each of the 2 base pieces. Then I stood the base up sideways, so the 4 black pieces were oriented up, and got the 2nd base piece (barely) positioned at the top end of the black pieces. (Would have been easier with a 2nd pair of hands.) Then I used the rubber mallet to tighten up the connections between the 4 black rods and the 2 base pieces. At that point they were reasonably secure, and I could put the assembly back down. Then I put the wheels in place. I used a little bit of the spray lubricant on those sockets also. The wheels popped in okay, but took a little bit of force to get seated all the way in. Then I put the 2 uprights together and seated those in the base, then put the horizontal assembly on top. It was easy to move the rack around, the wheels seem to work well. *** Then I started putting clothes on the rack. As the rack got more full with rather heavy formal dresses, it became obvious that its stability was not too good. I carefully positioned the rack against a table, and hoped it would stay put. However, when I came back a couple hours later, I found that it had fallen over. I think the problem is that the base isn't heavy enough for the weight, i.e., the center of gravity wasn't low enough. I'm going to put a couple boxes of books on the lower part and see if that improves the balance. *** Overall, I think it's a nice rack for the price. Just be aware that you probably don't want to put a lot of heavy clothes on it, or if you do, you'll have to do something to improve the stability. My other remark is that there weren't really any assembly instructions. There was a very nice, very clear diagram of the parts and how they went together, but no instructions per se. I've put a lot of things together before, so it wasn't too much of a problem for me, but it would have been nice to have a little more guidance, and for someone not used to assembling things from parts it might be kind of baffling. At any rate, even given a few difficulties to overcome, I still like the rack, and if it can be steadied with some weight at the base I'll come back and report. *** [a few days later] Putting some boxes of books on the base definitely helped. I'm not going to be putting as many heavy clothes on it, but it seems to be standing up okay with a moderate number of dresses. (I've added a picture of the current "load".)
