ᐅ Assembly Tips for the IKEA BESTÅ System

Hello everyone!

I’m new here and, as you might expect, I already have a few questions.
I want to redecorate my living room and have already checked out several furniture stores until I finally settled on the BESTÅ system from IKEA. I liked it best for its design and modularity.

So, I started planning before Easter.
But last week I got a shock:
The BESTÅ DVD shelf 60x20x192cm (24x8x75 inches) has been completely discontinued, and the DVD shelf 30x20x192cm (12x8x75 inches) is now only available in white.
Also, the FRAMSTÅ glass shelves 60x21cm (24x8 inches) (701.461.79) are no longer available.
Great, of course with no announcement on the website...
My email inquiry has gone unanswered for a week, so I went to IKEA in Fürth today.

Fortunately, they still had a few leftover BESTÅ DVD shelves 60x20x192cm (24x8x75 inches) in beech (901.021.03) at a reduced price. How lucky that this was exactly the color I wanted.
So I grabbed two, even though I don’t know if I’ll actually need them all.

Unfortunately, the glass shelves were completely sold out.
Does anyone know where I could still get 2 to 4 pieces?

I want to place 2 BESTÅ TV units with FRAMSTÅ panel rows next to each other, mounting the TV in the middle, with glass shelves on the left and right.
The TV is smaller, but the planner only allows for a 60" between the two rows.
The grey drawers in the middle are meant to represent the amplifier and DVD player.

And then I have a question about the FRAMSTÅ system:
You can cut holes for cables in the FRAMSTÅ panel inserts, but how do the cables get into the panels?
I will likely mount the cabinets about 1cm (0.4 inches) away from the wall because of power and antenna cables, but the panels have to go directly against the wall.
So how do I route my cables from the BESTÅ unit into the panels?
Do I have to saw holes into the side end rails, or how did the IKEA designers intend this?
The assembly instructions only show how the cables come out of the panel at the front, but not how they get into the panel in the first place...

I would appreciate any tips!

Best regards,
Stefan

Hello, I will soon be assembling a Besta wall unit as well. Do you already have the 49cm (19 inches) deep benches? They are also being discontinued. There are only a few matching drawers left in some stores.
I find it really frustrating that so many items are removed well before the end of the catalog year without any notice. Grip is also no longer available, and there is no suitable replacement.

Do you already have the 49cm (19 inches) deep benches? They are being discontinued as well.

What, those too?
Where did you get that information? The IKEA guy didn’t mention anything about it today...
He only said that it often happens that the information from headquarters comes 1–2 weeks before the delivery stop.

Seriously, what are they smoking at IKEA headquarters?!?
Have they never heard of proper Product Lifecycle Management?
Would it be too much to ask to announce a phase-out visible to everyone 2–3 months in advance?
They managed to do that quite clearly with galant and EFFEKTIV:

Act fast now!
GALANT and EFFEKTIV are being discontinued

Is the entire series supposed to be discontinued?
Or how do they expect us to accommodate an AV receiver?
Maybe a cheap DVD player fits into the 40cm (16 inches) deep cabinets, but no AV receiver.
My receiver barely fits in height-wise, a few more centimeters of clearance would have been nice...
I’d have to leave the back panel open anyway because of the cables.

Also, the 26cm (10 inches) height of the 49cm (19 inches) deep bench matches exactly 4 panels (each 32cm (13 inches)) and a 38cm (15 inches) high wall shelf, which adds up to the same height as a regular cabinet at 192cm (75 inches).
So you could only use the 64cm (25 inches) shelf and 4 panels, but then the TV would be too high.
Or 2 of the 64cm (25 inches) shelves with 2 panels in between, but then no TV fits, or it definitely looks awful.
Or only panels, but then I lose a lot of storage space.

Man, I’m really tempted to return the DVD shelves I just bought today and build my own furniture...

Best regards

BESTA is not being completely discontinued; on the contrary, new items are being introduced. For example, there will be elements with a depth of 20 cm (8 inches), which were previously only available in 40 cm (16 inches), such as 60x64 cm (24x25 inches) or 60x128 cm (24x50 inches). Maybe you could plan an alternative like that?

Well, at least that’s some good news.
But I still don’t understand why the 120x49x26cm (47x19x10 inches) unit is being removed.
That basically makes the FRAMSTÅ system somewhat useless...

And I’ll have to figure out how to place my receiver outside the BESTÅ system without it looking awkward… and right now, I can’t think of a good solution for that...

By the way, I discovered something yesterday that I’ve been wondering about for a while—why it doesn’t exist:
a way to hang the BESTÅ wall shelves more conveniently.
By chance, I found this in the US IKEA store: the BESTÅ suspension rail.
Did this product also exist in Germany, and are they now just selling off the remaining stock?
The PDF assembly instructions are from 2008, so it’s probably been around for a while...

Best regards

I got a 128 cm (50 inch) high Framsta panel wall from the clearance section for 19 €. Now the mystery of how the cables are routed has been solved. There is space for the cables behind the posts. In the horizontal aluminum rail, there are holes through which the cables can be passed out.