Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I just finished putting this together a few minutes ago and, as I write this, my 15-week old kitten is going NUTS on it. She keeps attacking the little fuzzy mice that are attached to two of the platforms and trying to take them off the tree with her and they keep snapping back...I'm pretty sure she's getting pissed, but it's providing a lot of entertainment for this happy mommy. A few observations: 1) All of the parts came in one HUGE, very heavy box. I had to roll the box into my house because there was no way I could lift it. 2) I'm EXTREMELY happy to report that, despite a lot of reviews about missing parts, I received all of the parts. 3) This was pretty easy to put together and I'm pretty much the least-handy 30-year-old girl you'll meet. That said, the box lacked any sort of instructions for putting this together, so I had to rely on a parts list that has a diagram of what goes where and I pulled up the picture of the tree on Amazon and kind of just figured it out. It took about an hour and 15 minutes and my cat was playing on it before I even got to putting the second tier together. 4) This looks really nice, but it IS sort of flimsy. Some of the sides of the little houses, for example, are made of particle board, while others feel like they are little more than cardboard. The surfaces that are the flimsiest, though, are not surfaces that your cat would be walking on...they're the sides of the condos. 5) The carpet is laid directly over the particle board, as mentioned in a few of the other reviews. All this means is that the cat will be walking/laying/playing on a very soft, but hard (not cushy) surface. Not a big deal...my cat likes to lay on the hard floor and that's not soft. Also, I see a couple of small spots where the carpet is NOT covering the wood underneath. I'm not going to return the tree over this, but it's kind of annoying that there's a bare surface, even if it's just a corner or other small area. 6) I recommend this product, especially at $50-something bucks, which is what I got it for. BUT, be prepared to pay an arm and a leg for shipping. I ended up paying almost $100 when all was said and done...still a good deal in the world of cat trees, but it would have been nice to not have to pay as much in shipping as I paid for the dang tree. That's my two cents...Overall, I'm pretty happy right now and it seems my new rescue kitty is too! UPDATE 3/15//12: So, the tree was a hit...for a few months. I have to say that the tree got flimsier and flimsier as time went on. I bought it about a year and a half ago and never moved it after I put it together, yet the whole thing started moving and all the little branches started bending after a short period of time simply from my cat jumping on and laying on it (and she's a very small cat). When I moved out of state in January, I took it apart hoping to put it back together at my new apartment, but it is still sitting in pieces on my floor because all of the holes where you put the screws to keep it together are stripped (it is just particle board, afterall). So, my final word on this is that I think it was a great piece...for a short period of time. Definitely doesn't hold up for the long haul, but if you want something for a year, it's great.