Changes in Ikea's Detolf line

[SuperSenpai]

So I went on Ikea's website the other day looking to see if my local store had any Detolfs in stock, and I noticed that the black/brown one was the only one listed -- they didn't show the beech version. Since I live relatively close to Ikea, I stopped by today while my family was out shopping and talked to a couple of their staff members. It turns out that Ikea has discontinued the beech colored version, and is only stocking the black/brown one. They are also planning to introduce a white Detolf in August. So for those of you who have only beech colored ones (like me) and you need to add more, you're either going to have to live with mismatching cabinets, find used ones on Craigslist, or ditch them and start anew with a different kind.

I also noticed that Ikea has introduced a new glass cabinet that looks like it could be rather nice for displaying toy collections. It's about the size of two Detolfs side by side, but you get a little more space since there's no gap in the middle. It's a little pricey in comparison, but it looks a bit more solid.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90239733/#/90239733

[anime52k8]

I was planing to reorganize my room and get 3~4 detolfs this month, but now I think I'll wait if they're going to bring out white ones.

[Sandman]

Wow the yellow version is ugly. Don't care for the feet either.

[Benson13]

I don't like that new cabinet at all. The best part of the Detolf is it's openness, especially in the front. If the doors were all glass instead of having that frame I would like it a lot more.

As for the new top and bottom being white, I think that color will take away from our displays because a majority of valks are white.

[Kanedas Bike]

I don't like that new cabinet at all. The best part of the Detolf is it's openness, especially in the front. If the doors were all glass instead of having that frame I would like it a lot more.

Agree. And that ridiculous $ 399 price tag makes it an even less attractive alternative to the Detolf. Thank goodness they're not discontinuing the whole line.

-b.

[Benson13]

If they discontinued the line I'd leave work and head down there right now with my credit card in hand. My Ikea is pretty well stocked with the Detolfs. They tend to keep 10-15 on hand at all times.

[Saburo]

That new cabinet is not my style. I am out of room on my display shelf, I have Valks all over the place right now so its time to get cases.

I'll be heading to Ikea next month to buy some detolfs in black.

[Duymon]

I had to mix my Detolfs

[Kanedas Bike]

^Reminds me of a chess or even checkers board.

-b.

[SuperSenpai]

I agree that the Stockholm cabinet is not as good a value in comparison to the Detolf, and I also dislike the door frames causing a blockage in the front. However, when I saw it in person at the store, I noticed that it did seem to be sturdier than the Detolf. Also if you don't like the legs you could probably just not install them and rest the unit on the floor. The other thing I noticed was that it used real wood, rather than that fake particleboard stuff that Ikea typically uses, which explains the added price. But more than that, it also means that you could repaint it to something you like better.

Looks like I'll be scouring Craigslist for beech-colored Detolfs.... sigh.

[Hikuro]

Odd, when I bought these last month only options were the black/brown. Eithercase it went well with the room's colors. I had very few complaints on these cases.

1) Missing parts (Yeah actually had to contact Ikea on that one and wait a week with a case half finished)

2) Small, would of liked them to be 4 inches wider at least, or deeper, could hold a lot more that way.

3) Stability, I actually didn't wanna sit them on the carpet, they wobbled a bit even though the cases were level. So I bought 2 8 foot wood panels and cut them into quarters for the length of my display room and now they're perfectly balanced.

4) Bad directions, namely where those plastic strips to hold the glass panels go.

Otherwise, when they're done, they're very pleasing and doing what they need to do.

[Gakken85]

I rock the brown so no worries here

Edited June 18, 2014 by Gakken85

[happy_spike]

I hope they don't discontinue them, I'm just about to get my house so I can FINALLY display my valks, but wont be able to afford them for a while. So I really hope they keep going for at least 6 months

Edited June 18, 2014 by happy_spike

[Gakken85]

It sells too well for them to discontinue it. It's always out of stock. Probably just finding that beech wood was too expensive.

Also, I've never understood why people think the Detolf isn't sturdy. I know the inner metal rack kind of wobbles but that's just the design. It's heavy as hell and I've never had issues.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Gakken85

[Kanedas Bike]

It sells too well for them to discontinue it. It's always out of stock. Probably just finding that beech wood was too expensive.

Also, I've never understood why people think the Detolf isn't sturdy. I know the inner metal rack kind of wobbles but that's just the design. It's heavy as hell and I've never had issues.

Re: sturdiness, the same here. I've moved my two, fully loaded on all shelves across the room they're in at least twice and there were never any issues. In fact at least once nothing inside was even disturbed.

-b.

[locidm]

The cabinet itself is sturdy but the shelves are not. Not only the metal rack wobbles, the shelves are also free to move about with clearance on all four sides and secured by gravity and friction only. You get what you pay for with a detolf. A real cabinet is much much sturdier. In a real cabinet, toys don't move when one opens it's door.

Having said that, the detolf is a great solution to many collectors who would rather spend money on toys than cabinet.

[Mog]

It sells too well for them to discontinue it. It's always out of stock. Probably just finding that beech wood was too expensive.

I seriously doubt that last part above. That beech color is probably just some veneer Ikea slaps on as a finishing touch.

There can't be that much of a price difference between putting a black/brown veneer on the Detolf versus putting the beech colored one.

Regardless, I'm still pissed off about Ikea's decision.

But if I ever decide to expand the displays, I'll give Duymon's mix-and-match look a try.

[Scyla]

No offense but someone really thought that the top and bottom of a Detolf is made out of real wood? If so your Ikea must be real classy.

If your Ikea sells Detolf cabinets made out of real woo it must be real classy. The one in my area sells only Detolfs made out of chipboard with a layer of plastic glued onto it. Which is something I despise.

The only reason I can think of why Ikea won't continue with the bleached wood design is that it it doesn't fit into their design language anymore.

Actually I quite like the Stockholm design. Maybe I will check it out to see how good it keeps the dust out of the cabinet.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Scyla

[antibiotictab]

I can also buy the Stockholm and the Detolf in my country. The former is 44,900 yen. Expensive...

[Matt Random]

Everyone start panic buying!!!

The Stockholm is interesting, but you will have to arrange around the door frames that block the middle. I have a Billy similar to the following except it has clear doors and glass shelves. I have to leave a space in the middle of each shelf otherwise you can't see what's there. The Billy is fugly, but it has served me well as my collection has constantly changed over the past 10 years or so.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S49001239/

I also have a Detolf. I really like the style and love the price, but find it limiting due to the small footprint, short height and fixed shelves. I'd like to see something like the Stockholm with thin metal framed door and with the height and versatility of the Billy and in black.

[Mechapilot77]

Everyone start panic buying!!!

The Stockholm is interesting, but you will have to arrange around the door frames that block the middle. I have a Billy similar to the following except it has clear doors and glass shelves. I have to leave a space in the middle of each shelf otherwise you can't see what's there. The Billy is fugly, but it has served me well as my collection has constantly changed over the past 10 years or so.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S49001239/

I also have a Detolf. I really like the style and love the price, but find it limiting due to the small footprint, short height and fixed shelves. I'd like to see something like the Stockholm with thin metal framed door and with the height and versatility of the Billy and in black.

the stockholm is interesting BUT aesthetically i can't stand the overhangs on each side of the wood base platform. not sure what they were thinking with that design. it does otherwise look nice in the white metal frame.

[mechaninac]

I like this Billy Valbo Bookcase; it's only 11" (28cm) deep, but it is very elegant in design and will accommodate most of the stuff we tend to collect; if only it were available without the decorative etching on the glass doors...

[Kanedas Bike]

I like this Billy Valbo Bookcase; it's only 11" (28cm) deep, but it is very elegant in design and will accommodate most of the stuff we tend to collect; if only it were available without the decorative etching on the glass doors...

Oh wow, those doors are not aesthetically pleasing...

-b.

[Duymon]

Oh wow, those doors are not aesthetically pleasing...

-b.

Flowery Valks

[hevangel2]

Stay away from Detolf. My glass door of my Detolf just scattered one night for no reason and Ikea refuse to replace it.

[anime52k8]

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

[mechaninac]

I believe hevangel2 means shattered, but that does not make sense either as tempered glass does not spontaneously break; it requires a severe thermal shock, or physical impact or drop, or a focused hit to a pane under stress for that kind of glass shatter.

Edited June 19, 2014 by mechaninac

[Benson13]

I dropped two glass detolf doors from the height of two feet and they bounced, scared the frack out of me and were fine.

[technoblue]

hevangel2's shattered glass comment reminds me of this youtube video:

I thought that happened because of user error, but maybe Ikea has since changed the glass for the detolf line?

[no3Ljm]

Didn't IKEA already released a white detolf years ago? And are they going to discontinue it? But since they're going to 'reintroduce' again the white color, does that mean the beech color ones will sure make a comeback in the foreseeable future?

[aaajin]

I like this Billy Valbo Bookcase; it's only 11" (28cm) deep, but it is very elegant in design and will accommodate most of the stuff we tend to collect; if only it were available without the decorative etching on the glass doors...

they have glass dorrs without the decorations too : Billy Morebo Glass Doors. They also have glass shelves as well : BILLY shelf

Im using the shorter version for my small collection :

[bbrain]

Looked into that, a brown/black Billy system with glass shelves and doors would be $230, Detolf is only $65 each but only come with 4 shelves vs 6, though depth is better.. does anyone have a full sized Billy with glass that can attest to it?

[mechaninac]

Thanks aaajin, good to know. The only problem with those is that they ammount to additinal cost, so I would still preffer if the clear doors were available as an out-of-the-box package.

[anime52k8]

Unit cost aside, I personally think the detolf just looks better from a display perspective because the glass sides and back create a more open display environment with better possibilities for external illumination.

Anyways, I just realized that I've actually had a BILLY bookcase for years without even realizing it. it's this one http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/13690607/

It's basically the same as the Billy Valbo without the doors. the 11 inch depth is definitely an issue and really limits display space. if you're going to use a billy, get the extra deep model http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90208473/

Also, an important thing to know about the full size billy, while it has extra holes so you can add or subtract selves and move the top two and bottom two shelves as you please, the middle shelf is a structural support that can't be taken out, moved, or replaced with glass; so you'll be stuck with at least one wood shelf dividing your case in half. Another thing to watch out for, the back panel is a very thin sheet of veneer that's easy to crack. I managed to split it from top to bottom of the whole case just putting books away.

[anime52k8]

Looked into that, a brown/black Billy system with glass shelves and doors would be $230, Detolf is only $65 each but only come with 4 shelves vs 6, though depth is better.. does anyone have a full sized Billy with glass that can attest to it?

to get more technical in the comparison. the extra deep BILLY, with two glass doors, and 4 glass shelves to replace the removable wooden ones. comes to $240. but the billy is twice the width and 15 inches taller, so really it's $240 vs $130 (for two detolfs).

now getting into actual storage space. the extra deep billy is actually about and inch deeper than the Detolf with the actual shelf panels being 37cm deep vs 34cm. And because it's devided between two units, the Detolf looses out on usable internal width despite being slightly wider in external width when you've got two side by side. if you do the math and total everything up. The detolf has 10608 square centimeters of usable shelf space spread across four levels each in two cases. the Billy on the other hand has 16872 square centimeters of space spread across 6 levels. now, the flip side of this is that the Detolf has a fixed vertical clearance per shelf of 38cm (about 15 inches). where as the billy, with two extra shelves only has about 31 cm of vertical clearance (a bit over 12 inches). That said, the billy has the advantage of movable shelves, so you can very shelf height with some taller to accommodate bigger items and others shorter and loaded with smaller things. you can also leave out shelves and trade surface area for significantly more height; or do the inverse and add shelves to get significantly more area to work with as long as all your stuff is relatively short.

So the short version is, at the cost of about $110, the Billy gets you a lot more space to work with and a greater degree of adjustability. Is it worth the extra money? I'm not actually sure myself, I'm still trying to decide.

Edited June 19, 2014 by anime52k8