Ships as 5 (heavy) boxes, we previously had a soft top gazebo and wanted to try a hard top. This is the same size 12x12 as our previous gazebo, it sits on our elevated (wood) deck. We (wife and I) watched some installs online (youtube), lots of good tips, there are some irritating things, (double sided tape to hold some plastic brackets on the solid top pieces that just does not work, probably should have glued them), but watch some youtube installs (none are perfect, some are for what look like older versions of the gazebo), it was very helpful to get hints from the installation videos. Most of the instructions were correct, although its sometimes hard to figure out exactly how pieces are oriented (there are soooo many). Very important to have a clutch capable electric drill for screwing in pieces, (but do not tighten until after you get them all in, so you can still wrangle the pieces over the pre-drilled holes). TONS OF SCREWS TO MANAGE, certainly would not want to install them manually, definitely want to prepare for handling the many many screws, sort them, label them, etc. We put labels on cups and kept the different screws being used for a given phase of installation in unique (and labelled) cups. Final product is high quality in my opinion (for the price), although manual says the gazebo will only withstand 40mph, and we still have not figured out exactly how to lock it down to our deck (instructions only talk about installing on cement). Took us 4 days all in, starting from carrying the packages onto our deck (one or two of them needed two of us to move them). We avoided the full sun hours (1-4PM) as our deck is full sun and we would be burnt to crisps, so say 9:30 to 12P, then after 4P until dusk sort of deal, (two of us working), a ladder and two varied height step stools, multiple electric drills. The parts were packed very well, with material between the parts in each box to keep them from scratching each other. The screws were all high quality, they went in without too much wrangling, although fitting the many many solid top pieces to the frame takes some man handling. Still, very do-able, just a big time commitment. Its up, beautiful, and we are enjoying sitting under it on our sunny deck, screens are installed, but we have not tried to use them yet.