Room Copenhagen brick storage drawer reviews

The LEGO IKEA BYGGLEK range isn’t the only selection of official LEGO storage solutions available – Room Copenhagen offers a very interesting alternate.

With all the hype and attention around LEGO IKEA BYGGLEK (read our full review here), you’d be forgiven for perhaps not realising that the LEGO Group still has a specific partnership with a storage company, Room Copenhagen. For years this partnership has been producing ranges of storage solutions at various sizes and in a particularly unique, LEGO-themed way, and they are still going strong today.

You have to wonder how they feel about IKEA’s collaboration with their business partners culminating in essentially a storage-based product with the LEGO Group’s stamp of approval (and marketing). Even so, the two companies are producing very different ranges of official LEGO storage solutions, as there are many different ways and wants for LEGO storage, so it’s only appropriate with the fanfare surrounding BYGGLEK that we take a look at what Room Copenhagen has available for a similar budget.

The four products within the BYGGLEK – the 201-piece LEGO set and the three different LEGO box with lid options – come in at a combined price of £52. Working to that same total spend, then, and with one eye on Amazon reductions, here’s what we managed to pick up from the Room Copenhagen range currently available.

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— LEGO Brick Storage Box Drawer 4 Knobs 4.7 litres, 25x25x18cm – £24.99 (£16.99 on Amazon) —

Room Copenhagen’s range has always centred around oversized, large-scale LEGO brick storage boxes, based on the 1×1, 1×2, 2×2 and 2×4 LEGO bricks. Stackable just like real LEGO bricks, this colourfully-ranged, thick plastic design comes with large, firmly-attached lids that slide off the top. Dust-proof to an almost air-tight degree and solid enough to withstand transport and the occasional impact, we actually have a couple of the 2×4 bricks in the Brick Fanatics office to store photography equipment.

The only point of issue we have had in their use has been in the design of the lids – they take a little more effort than is sometimes convenient to pull off to access what’s inside. And that’s why the first product within our budget we had to pick up was the 2×2 storage brick drawer.

It’s a more recent variation on the storage brick that Room Copenhagen has developed and, for the expense of 1 litre of storage, the products stored within are far more accessible via  a front-facing drawer, whilst otherwise still offering the same scale and interlocking feature as the more traditional storage bricks.

The quantity of LEGO you can store within is substantial too, but of course in specific amounts will vary depending on the type of LEGO bricks you wish to store, and how. As mentioned from how we’ve made previous use of these products too, they are solid enough to use to store other items too. It’s notable that even when full (at least of LEGO), the drawer remains upright when pulled out, rather than falling forward from the weight. Certainly, if you store something like gold in there, the same result won’t necessarily be possible.

The large-scale brick storage drawers are also available in 2×4 brick format, offering exactly double the total storage – 9.4 litres – across a two-drawer design.

A number of both the 2×2 and 2×4 brick storage drawers are available at LEGO.com and across Room Copenhagen’s Amazon store.  We picked up the white drawer reduced to £16.99 at the latter.

— LEGO Brick Desk Drawer 4 Knobs (158x158x113mm) – £15.99 —

Next up in perusing the Room Copenhagen range whilst attempting to keep to within the equivalent LEGO IKEA BYGGLEK budget, we were drawn in by a smaller drawer-based storage solution.

Looking almost identical to the larger storage drawer, bar the placement of the inverted handle to pull out the drawer, it actually comes in at a much smaller size, reflective of its design intentions to sit on a desk.

Even whilst at this size it has still been put together with the same quality plastic and finished to the same standards as the larger storage boxes, but at the smaller scale is not ‘brick compatible’ with its bigger brothers. The smaller size is at once a novelty and a useful storage solution, looking really smart and offering decent capacity within the pull-out drawer.

— LEGO Brick Desk Drawer 8 Knobs (316x158x113mm) – £19.99 —

And to complete our collection of Room Copenhagen products for the same total spend as the entire LEGO IKEA BYGGLEK range, and to satisfy our curiosity, we picked up the 2×4 version of the desk drawer. For the extra £4 it doubles the storage potential and offers a compatible option for the 2×2 desk drawer to sit on.

There’s little to fault in the quality and design of the Room Copenhagen desk drawers – they are smaller than the storage boxes and, for the visual similarity in their product pages, some purchases of these, when intended to be the larger ones, may be made in error.

Interestingly, though, in comparison to the LEGO IKEA BYGGLEK range, the desk drawer storage boxes in particular come in at a slightly better scale with the IKEA range of KALLAX storage display units.

— Pictures —

— Summary —

For the price of one of each of the four products from the LEGO IKEA BYGGLEK – £52 – and with a bit of shopping around on Amazon, we have been able to pick up three equally official LEGO storage boxes (give or take £1) that in quality of finish are arguably sturdier and to a higher standard, and that in terms of design, offer the same LEGO authenticity, albeit in a completely different style.

If you are after LEGO brick compatibility and are unfussy on colour, then the LEGO IKEA BYGGLEK strikes a unique chord. For more practical and stylish storage options, however, Room Copenhagen remains the frontrunner, with plenty more variety in colour, size and scale available.

It should be said that both are terrible dust magnets. It’s plastic, just like all that LEGO you are trying to store away. If there are a range of LEGO-themed dusters available, look out for that much-needed review.

Room Copenhagen is available at LEGO.com, in LEGO stores, at other select retailers and via the Room Copenhagen Amazon store.

The LEGO IKEA BYGGLEK range is currently available only in IKEA stores.

Support the work that Brick Fanatics does by purchasing your LEGO through any of our affiliate links.

Author Profile

Rob Paton
As one half of Tiro Media Ltd, I mix a passion for print and digital media production with a deep love of LEGO and can often be found on these pages eulogising about LEGO Batman, digging deeper into the LEGO Group’s inner workings, or just complaining about the price of the latest LEGO Star Wars set. Make a great impression when you meet me in person by praising EXO-FORCE as the greatest LEGO theme of all time. Follow me on Twitter @RobPaton or drop me an email at [email protected].

Rob Paton

As one half of Tiro Media Ltd, I mix a passion for print and digital media production with a deep love of LEGO and can often be found on these pages eulogising about LEGO Batman, digging deeper into the LEGO Group’s inner workings, or just complaining about the price of the latest LEGO Star Wars set. Make a great impression when you meet me in person by praising EXO-FORCE as the greatest LEGO theme of all time. Follow me on Twitter @RobPaton or drop me an email at [email protected].

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