IKEA SAMLA 45-Litre Box Review: Cheap Clear Storage With a £3 Lid

Box and lid: £5 plus £3, no bundle saving

The £8 listing is a two-package set, the box under 301.029.74 and the lid under 704.550.87. Bought apart, they total the same £8, so the bundle page is convenience and nothing more. Skip the lid only where open-top access matters more than dust, as on a shelf of wrapping paper that gets raided weekly.

The lid page says it fits all 45 and 65 litre boxes in the series, including ones already at home, so a household with open SAMLA boxes can close each for £3. The lid's package measures 57 by 40 by 2 cm and weighs 0.41 kg, thin enough to store flat when not in use.

IKEA UK takes back unopened products within 365 days for a full refund, and opened ones within 365 days with a receipt, though an opened box is refunded to a refund card. One box tried on the real shelf before buying five more is a low-risk start.

Check the shelf depth before the volume

IKEA gives the box with lid as 57 cm long, 39 cm deep and 28 cm high, with the box alone at 56 cm; the lid adds the extra centimetre. Volume is stated as 45 litres. On a shelf 38 cm deep the box overhangs by about a centimetre, which is fine on a bottom shelf and annoying at eye level, where the lip catches a sleeve.

The product text says the series is dimensioned to fit shelving units such as IVAR and BROR, and that all sizes are dimensioned to each other, so smaller SAMLA boxes should line up in a mixed stack. KALLAX appears on none of the three pages, so measure a cube opening against 57 by 39 cm before assuming the box slides in.

Three restrictions IKEA prints in plain text

Under Good to know, both box pages say the product is recommended for indoor use only and is not approved for food contact. The second line separates SAMLA from a kitchen canister: it suits bulk paper towels and not flour. The first rules out a covered porch or a shed, where IKEA offers no guidance on temperature swings or sun.

The safety section adds two more lines. With the lid on, the box is airtight, and IKEA warns against letting young children play in the box. For stacking, the advice is a maximum height of 90 cm with heavy things at the bottom; at 28 cm per box, that is three high. IKEA lists paint cans among suitable contents and the box-only page promises durable storage even for heavier items, yet no per-box load figure is published to put a number behind either line.

Polypropylene, wipe-clean, with package weight as the only heft clue

Both parts are polypropylene, and the care line is a soft cloth dampened in water and a mild washing-up detergent or soap if necessary. Nothing is said about dishwashers or solvents, so that line is the whole permitted range. The box ships at 1.23 kg, the closest the page comes to describing how substantial the walls are.

Clarity is the selling point and also the wear point. Transparent polypropylene shows scuffs, and IKEA makes no statement on UV or long-term clarity. In a wardrobe that stays dark this hardly matters. On a garage window shelf it is the property most likely to disappoint after a few years, and nothing on the pages lets you predict it.

Where this box is the wrong answer

Skip it when the contents are edible, when the box will live outdoors or in a damp basement corner, or when the plan stacks heavy tools more than three high. All three run into a restriction IKEA states outright, and the price does not change the plastic.

Skip it as well for cube shelves or anything shallower than 39 cm, and when a lidless box would do the same job for £5. The lid is worth £3 only if dust or stacking is the actual problem; for one box of wrapping paper on a top shelf, the open version is the same product minus a part nobody would click shut.