Ikea Expedit vs Closetmaid cube shelves

[MirandaMoes]

Any thoughts on the difference between these two? The ikea are a little more money I think but my main thought is Ikea is an house away and will be harder to get there is we need more later.
How are the closetmaid? How is the quality?
thanks!!
miranda

[C99]

The EXPEDIT openings are bigger (taller and deeper) than the Closetmaid shelves. I have an EXPEDIT; did not consider the Closetmaid.

[Piglet]

I don't know about the cubes, but do you have the Expedit book case? If you are thinking of buying it - don't! I just helped my friends assemble it and it was the hardest thing I have ever built in my life from Ikea. It had something like 50 dowels and only 8 screws, so it doesn't lock in place until the very end and is very hard to line everything up. Also, it swayed a fair bit once we got it up-right.

[deannanb]

I have the large expedit in our play room - and like PP said, it is a pain to put together, but once it was up.... so nice - opened up my playroom - and gave everything a place - IKEA includes braces to attach the expedit to the wall so it can't fall over. My toddler has tried a few times to climb it.. and it isn't going anywhere!

We also have the small expedit - with 8 openings... that is much easier to put together (i've done it by myself 3 times!) - I have one upright in my older son's room - one upright in my craft room - (2 across and 4 down) and one sideways in my toddlers room - full of books - (four across and 2 down)

I don't know much about the closetmaid similar shelves, but I've used several of their products and they are good too.

[brittone2]

We have two of the biggest size Expedits side by side in our living room (no playroom, so that gives us a lot of storage) and they work really well for us. I'm very happy with them. I like the size of the cubes, etc.

DH put it together with DS and I don't think it was that big of a deal for him, but he's also pretty handy.

They have held up really well to use and abuse here.

[babyready]

I think the Expedit is higher quality than the Closetmaid but also more expensive. We just put the Expedit together this weekend (the biggest one) and the only hard part was the very last piece. Otherwise, it was easy, only took us about an hour. IKEA also has several options for baskets/containers, so that is nice.

[LiznSeb]

Just another satisfied Expedit buyer (and I generally am not into Ikea), however, when comparing the ClostMaid and Ikea, the Ikea cubbies do hold tons more. It has worked out great for organizing in our current playroom, in fact if we ever finish our basement and move the playroom downstairs, I will definitely get a second a one!

As for assembly, DH (who loves Ikea, his entire aprt. was Ikea before he met me), did not report any difficulties, but like I said he has lots of experience putting together Ikea stuff! Ours is not the biggest (we have 4 x 4 openings) I would have preferred the bigger one but the boxes did not fit in my car.

Great purchase though, I never regretted it once.

Liz