I am in love with this TV stand, and so are my cats as you can see. The fireplace came separate from the actual stand, so that is why I have a picture with and without it!It took me about two to three hours to assemble, but it was an easy process - just time consuming. The instructions were clear and the sturdiness of the parts made it even easier.The material is just beautiful. It's even more beautiful in person - you would never know that I assembled this myself.I love that I can also use the stand without the fire place if I want. I can take the fireplace out by a few screws if I decide I don't want it anymore.THE FIREPLACE:The remote has four buttons. The on button, the light button, the heater button, and the timer button. The on button turns the light on and has three dimmable settings. The heater is temperature controlled - it starts at 65 degrees and goes up to HI. It goes up by 5 degrees each time you press the heater button, and pressing it after HI turns it off. The timer controls how long the heater stays on so that you don't forget to turn it off before bed! It honestly puts off enough heat that I don't think I'll even be using my apartment heaters this year. I have a personal heater right in front of me!The only thing I'd say that I don't like is the back to the TV stand. You can't put cords through anything else but the three holes in the small top part of the stand. I usually like putting an extension cord in one of the bottom cabinets, but I was disappointed to find out that I couldn't do that. In hindsight, to fix that I could have just left the back off, but I would have had to take a lot apart to do that so I made it work.OVERALL, I'm extremely satisfied with this purchase.