Markor, how I loved thee...

January 29, 2015 10:14 AM

I fell in love with dark brown Markor bookshelves from Ikea, and bought five of them, eventually. Now I would like more shelving, and something very Markor-like would be lovely... but Ikea has long since discontinued the pattern.

Don't bother pointing out some barren, 1x8 brown shelving. I've seen it. It's not pretty. I want pretty. And I'd love to continue the decor theme of Markor, but I'll take dark wood that's pretty and not outrageously expensive (I paid ~$150 in 2014 for those shelves back then, I'd guess). I'll even take 2nd-hand, but so far Google and Ebay don't even offer that.

posted by IAmBroom to Home & Garden (5 answers total)

Best answer: Have you looked at Target? In my experience, their furniture quality is similar to Ikea. Just two examples under $150.
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 10:55 AM on January 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: This doesn't help you immediately, but I rounded out a whole set of discontinued Magiker by keeping an eye on Craigslist. Sadly people rarely put the line names on their listings, and even neglect to put "Ikea" in the listing in hope of justifying a higher asking price.
Good luck!
posted by Sayuri. at 10:56 AM on January 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

Craigslist. Definitely. People are always getting rid of Ikea furniture. I think Craigslist has alerts built-in, or you could use an IFTTT recipe to get email alerts.
posted by radioamy at 11:02 AM on January 29, 2015

We've got a room full of HEMNES. It's solid wood, not an engineered product, it comes in a similar black/brown (which is the color we have), and has the advantage of four leveling feet. Looking at the pictures of MARKÖR I see online, it looks like the biggest difference between the two is the feet.
posted by fedward at 11:22 AM on January 29, 2015

Response by poster:

Bentobox Humperdinck: Have you looked at Target? In my experience, their furniture quality is similar to Ikea. Just two examples under $150.

Great! And I quickly found a shelving unit there that actually matches the desk in the room these will go, which is EVEN BETTER than matching the bookshelves in the next room!

Plus a Craigslist standing search wouldn't hurt, either. Thanks, all!

(fedward, Hemnes has a less decorative, more blocky edge treatment - squared off instead of chamfered like Markor. Already rejected it last night in the store. Thx anyway.)
posted by IAmBroom at 11:29 AM on January 29, 2015