Ikea ALEX drawers

I have the second 2 pieces you posted. I love them! They hold a ton and are surprisingly sturdy. I can post the interior dimensions this evening if someone else doesn't beat me to it.

I have top one for crafty supplies and the 2nd one for my work at home desk, but they are both basically the same. I love both of them. I agree, they are quite sturdy. If I had more room, I would probably get the low wide drawer one, but I don't.

I have several of the middle ones. One is the base on one side of an Ikea table/desktop and several more are bases that make a perpendicular counter to the desk with a piece of acrylic spanning them instead of a table top. (A corner table from Ikea fills in the space where they meet though it’s not required to work well.) The bottom one in your picture is on casters in a shallow closet.

BTW, Organize More makes drawer inserts. I have a couple but mostly use a variety of boxes/bins or nothing. The height of even the shallow drawers still surprises me that taller things can be put in than I assume will fit.
www.organizemore.com/collections/storage-for-ikea

If you want to tart them up: www.mywonderfulwalls.com/collections/drawer-decals-for-ikea-alex-units
the owner is a sweetheart. I have one for the closet unit. It’s the only gray Alex and I recently took off the closet doors.

Wanting shallow shelves instead of drawers, one of the smaller Alexes was put together without the drawers. The metal drawer runners come already installed and make a lip that acrylic or wood shelves can rest on top. Laminated closet shelves from Home Depot were cut for shelves, though they don’t go all the way back. Two could be used butted against each other though I didn’t need that much length. Unexpected bonus - a full sized Scor-Pal fits on top of one set of runners without needing a shelf.

The bottom two shelves were changed to 1/4” acrylic sold/cut by a glass shop, since our newly adopted cat would crawl onto them and out the back, pushing things off the shelves. (Many cats won’t walk on glass/acrylic since they don’t look solid.) He was shocked and annoyed for only a few hours.

The only concern I’ve read that never crossed my mind, despite having Alexes for years, along with many crafters, was that like many companies’ units, drawers don’t pull out 100%. There’s a stop. A youtube video shows how to change that though It looked like a pain. I also have a short Alex unit with a hanging file drawer at the bottom, which had a solvable problem, but you didn’t post that one. Obviously I love them and have spent too much time fiddling with them. They are very sturdy and look new some after many years.

From what I’ve read, IKEA is redoing the Alex drawers. You might have trouble finding them in stock till this summer when the new style releases.

Whaaaaaaaaaat?! This is exciting news!

For the better I hope!

So do you all prefer the drawers over open shelving? I find if I put things in drawers I forget about them. If they are on shelves, I remember.

Yes, drawers and doors.  I like neatness. Too much out in the open makes me antsy. lol.  I do like stuff out for the pretty colors, but not everything. 

I have the 3rd piece. Interior measurements are 23 1/2”by 16 3/4”. The shallow drawers give you about
2 1/4” of depth and the larger ones are about 3”.

I much prefer drawers but wide drawers. That way I can see a lot at one time and leave them open while I'm working to simply grab things as I need them. Then they get shut all all the stuff is hidden. I use 2 drawers as color drawers to store stickers, embellishments, twine, dots, brads, buttons, ribbon etc by color. The other ones are for punches, tags, ink (I don't have a lot), small tools, etc. On the top I keep my manual die cutter and it all sits to the right of me to make an L shaped work area.

Unfortunately, the measurements people offer from existing units they own may not work for you. They're revamping this line and even though the exterior looks the same, supposedly the drawer dimensions on the interior aren't the same in the new ones compared to the old ones across the board.

I’ve been watching the Clutterbug YT channel and she describes 4 different organizing styles that help explain why some people have every drawer micro-organized and other people need a big basket on a shelf to dig through. You sound like a visual organizer (I forget the details of the 4 types but some people need closed doors and some people just can not). This video might help

Yes to everything she said!

I have one of the 2nd and 4 of the third abd love them. I also got a bunch of inserts from organize more and they really go me jeep everything organized!