Ikea’s online store recently opened in the Philippines. I have been eyeing their Lerberg shelf for some time to replace plastic and MDF layer shelves that were frankly an eyesore for me. Things happened in my personal life and I was in a “declutter and reorganize the house” mood.
Note: I wrote this post late last year but hadn’t gotten around to editing the photos until now. Most of the photos were taken at the time of assembly. I lost some photos after switching phones several times 🙁
There are 3 colors available – white, black and yellow. The white and black ones were P1990, but the yellow one was only P1,290. Same shelf, but P700 difference just because of the color! Yellow works for our white, green and wood brown tropical theme – I had been planning on getting a yellow pop of color so this was fine.
So I placed an order at Ikea’s online store at around midnight. I thought they were also doing things like 10.10 or something, but no. Anyway, to my surprise, my order arrived in the morning! That’s less than 12 hours. Shipping fee was P170 for 2 shelves. Not sure if this is a flat rate, but I tried to “fake order” other stuff (and not push through with the order) just to check if the shipping fee changed, and even for small plates, the shipping fee was still P170.
Assembling it was easy, all the screws were complete, and even included a tool for it. But I used an electric screwdriver, which made it a lot easier. It’s better if you get someone to help you so things go faster. The only thing that took a little more effort was trying to make sure the legs of the shelf are placed correctly facing the correct direction, but there are arrows at the bottom of the shorter legs as a guide.
The Ikea Lerberg has a provision to let you screw the shelf to your wall. This is to prevent the shelf from toppling over in case a child climbs it. I did not bother with this because I want the flexibility to be able to move the shelves around as needed.
We really liked the look of the Lerberg shelf – it’s not visually heavy, and it keeps things off the floor. I also like that the bottom is open so it’s easy to sweep / mop under. I find that shelves with a low bottom tend to accumulate dust because people don’t bother to move them to sweep under.
We thought of getting more Lerberg shelves for other rooms, but we wanted white ones. But the Ikea ones were almost P2,000 each. I had seen many “imitation” Lerberg shelves on Shopee selling for about P1,000, so we ordered a “long” shelf and a “short” version. Of course, I wasn’t expecting the same level of quality as the authentic ones from Ikea, but I still wasn’t overjoyed by the fake Lerbergs. They do not spark joy. There were some rust spots.
In terms of value for money, yeah, sure, okay, the fake ones are “puwede na”. Can’t really complain because they are half the price. But if someone is saying that they are 100% the same as the authentic ones, they are not.
Here are the differences that I noticed between the authentic vs fake Lerberg shelves:
| Authentic | Imitation |
| matte finish | glossy finish |
| thicker paint | has some rust spots |
| more stable | wobbly, but includes some stabilizer thing that you can screw to the bottom of the shelves, but we didn’t put it in because it looks ugly |
| looks nicer | generic |
| I’m afraid it can’t hold too much weight | can probably hold a bit more weight because of extra center support |
If you are on a budget, or will be using the shelves in non-main areas and don’t really need the shelves to be super nice, you can go for the fake Lerbergs – they will do the job.
If you want a better-looking shelf, go for the authentic one.
For both the authentic and the fake shelves, I don’t think they can hold very heavy stuff. The fake one does have more support in the center of the shelf. I tried putting about a dozen 1-liter milk cartons and some 1-liter cartons of juice on the lowest shelf of the Ikea, and I was getting scared that it wouldn’t hold and would bend the metal over time. After 6 months, the Ikea shelf did not bend. The Ikea shelf only has one extra wire support for the center of the shelf.
You might get annoyed seeing that the mesh on the imitation shelf was just like it was glued on top of the frame then painted. I didn’t notice this with the Ikea one.
I would say that if I didn’t have the authentic Ikea shelf, I would probably be more okay with the imitation one. But having the authentic one and now having the imitation one, it’s very hard not to compare, and I just consider it something that can do the job for half the price. The imitation one is actually okay, as long as you don’t compare it to the orig, and it is half the price.
As for the material, I feel like the thickness of the metal is kind of the same, both supports are hollow metal. The vertical supports of the Ikea one is rectangular-shaped, while the imitation one is square.
In terms of stability, they are both so-so, but the imitation was a bit more wobbly. The Ikea one was a tiny bit wobbly, too, but less than the imitation shelf. Once you put heavy items on the shelves, they become more stable. The imitation one did include this flower thing that you can screw to the bottom of the shelves to even out the legs but they just make the shelves look tacky so we didn’t put them on.
In terms of looks, from afar, they look the same, but if you look at the details, the Ikea one looks better (the angles and edges just look sharper and straighter), and the paint job looks a lot better. The paint of the Ikea one is matte and smooth and it feels like it won’t chip off anytime soon. While the paint job of the imitation Lerberg is glossy and looks totally generic, there are also some rust spots, especially on the inside corners of the shelves. I have read some user reviews on Shopee that said that the paint chips easily. Anyway, we got white shelves from Shopee, so it’s easy to “color match” a white, glossy paint in case the shelves need to be touched up in the future.
Add: it’s been almost 6 months and so far, the imitation ones have not chipped. But they are inside rooms and don’t tend to get scuffed up.
Is the extra P1,000 for a white or black Ikea Lerberg shelf worth it? That’s for you to decide. But if you are getting the yellow shelf, it’s only P290 difference between the Ikea one and the Shopee one.
