This is an excellent tree for heavy cats. Normally, I have to put bricks at the bottom of my cat tree, but this one did not need any because the base and platforms are quite heavy.
It arrived to my apartment complex in three heavy boxes. If you're a strong woman, you could lift these into a cart. Getting my brother to do it for me was so much easier though, ha ha. Definitely get help if you have no muscles or are elderly. Everything is wood except for the posts. They seem to be made from a dense cardboard. The sisal posts and plush fabric seem to be of good quality. The hammocks are heavy-duty metal rings with quilted fabric sewn around it. I have no worries about that fabric tearing in the hammock. The black sisal with contrasting grey fabric looks pretty fancy to me. I had no problems putting this together by myself. Definitely check that you have all your parts and follow the directions. Do not put it together based on the picture because some of the posts are slightly shorter than others to accommodate for the hammocks.
My 2yr, 7lb girl took to the tree right away. She hoists herself up using the posts and has enjoyed every single area of the tree. My 12yr, 10lb girl has only gotten to the first platform on her own. She's clumsy in general and prefers a warm lap over furniture though. I put her into a hammock and she napped in there for a while, but needed me to take her out of it. My 9yr, 17lb boy is too scared to go above the 1st platform without help. I had to purchase a smaller, cheap cat tree to put next to this one so he could climb confidently to the triangular platform. Now he goes everywhere except the very top and the hammocks. He's a suspicious scaredy cat anyway, so he'll probably figure out the hammocks in a few months when no one is looking.
It is an excellent tree for confident cats. I'm pretty satisfied with my purchase, but I kind of wish I spent more money to get a bigger tree. Perhaps if you have cats like mine, you might want to consider a tree that is spread out more for them to jump easier to each area.
Here's a pic of my 17lb boy on the first platform, my 10lb girl on top of the cubby, and my 7lb girl inside the cubby (before I purchased another tree to help with their climbing).