Spent some time looking for a coffee table that would pull up to act as a useable table at the sofa. We don't have kids at home anymore so we often eat on the couch while watching a movie or something. Always had to pull out the TV trays, this solves that problem. \n\nThe top pulls up flawlessly, has enough tension to hold firm in its place when up in any position and not fall down. But also closes nice and smooth when done. I am impressed with the mechanism that operates the top, its very smooth, just perfect. The color is nice and I like the styling. The two storage areas on either side are nice, we keep placemats and napkins in there so we can protect the top from hot plates, liquids, etc. When done, we clean up, toss the placemats back inside and close it up. No tacky TV trays sitting to the side.\n\nI took off one star for the quality of the finish, that's my only complaint. The top isn't bad, although the distressing marks are too consistent looking in my opinion. But the shelf underneath has several spots that have split where the finish didn't cover totally. Its not finished as smooth and nice as the top, which still isn't the greatest, but I am happy with it. Since you really can't see the bottom shelf its not a huge deal. But for the price would expect it to be finished a bit nicer. Its like they put more effort into the top and decided to cut corners on the bottom shelf...again not a huge deal since its not very visible. The over all function makes up for this issue in my mind. It did come with some damage to the bottom underside of the lower shelf, but didn't affect what you can see or the structural stability, so we just ignored it. \n\nOverall very happy with this purchase, we use it all the time! Should have gotten something like this years ago!