Ikea ARKELSTORP Desk Impressions: Kind of like a KULLABERG

I was trying to decide what to call attention to on the Ikea ARKELSTORP desk. It came down to two things: the drawers or the fact that it kind of looked like an Ikea KULLABERG desk. You'll never guess which one I decided on.

An "insulated" mug I burned my hand on once or twice.

Disclaimer: I had not had any firsthand experience with any ARKELSTORP desk products when I wrote this piece. Details were quoted from the Ikea United States website or Canada website in mid March 2017. Details on this page are NOT guaranteed for accuracy.

Ikea ARKELSTORP Desk First Impressions
Starting with the product photos on the Ikea.ca page for the Ikea ARKELSTORP desk (103.541.28) this time around. I saw a desk with a rectangular table top, two stacked drawers to a side, and four straight legs. There were also some relatively short panels under the desktop to the rear and sides. The drawers were interesting because it was like there should have been a cabinet under those drawers -- long enough to touch or almost touch the floor. But because the designer held back on it, the result looked so much more unique to me. Regardless, they looked great from the outside and contributed to the desk's character. Maybe I've been staring at too many other desks that did place a cabinet or large drawers to a side. The ARKELSTORP desk also, I thought, resembled the Ikea KULLABERG desk minus the cross-brace and with two drawers. Otherwise, both seemed to have a light-colored, wood-like desktop and black color scheme for the underframe.

Noted on the product page were dimensions of 140 cm x 70 cm x 74 cm (width x depth x height). While the depth and height were satisfactory for me, I found the width to be on the wider side. My preference for width was 100 cm to 120 cm and it went over by a bit. My concern was with finding space in a smaller room to fit the desk and having more trouble when moving it around.

Cooking something on a stove.

I ran through the "Assembly instruction" document on the ARKELSTORP's product page and did not think it was easy. The steps in the process didn't appear to be too difficult, but I thought there were a lot of them. And many seemed to be related to assembling the frame supporting the desktop. What got my attention the most was the way the desktop was attached to the frame in the instructions. Also, unless I misinterpreted something, the drawers did not look like they had wheels on the rails -- I've used both and the wheeled drawers have been much smoother. One last thing: I believe I saw the option to choose which side of the desk to place the drawers on.

Under the "Product description" of the ARKELSTORP desk's product page, the terms that caught my eye were "Solid pine," "Fiberboard," and "Solid eucalyptus wood." And again, I liked the relatively open underside allowing for storage and cable routing. The price was CA$ 229.00 which was getting on the higher side for me. This ARKELSTORP desk had what I considered a more professional or traditional appearance. In my view, the HEMNES desk for CA$ 169.00 and KULLABERG desk for CA$ 189.00 on the Ikea.ca website were more competitive -- both had a more professional look, but their dimensions were, obviously, different.

Final Thoughts
A desk from Ikea that kind of resembled the Ikea KULLABERG, huh? I thought the Ikea ARKELSTORP desk was attractive, had a professional look to it, and was functional. The price, however, was getting on the higher side especially with cheaper alternatives available from Ikea.