I'm a fan of the Elfa closet and shelf systems. The "customizability", sturdiness, and easy installation of the Elfa product has always impressed me and over the years I've installed 2 closets and a kids entertainment center using their product. What I'm not a fan of is the cost. As a product development engineer, I have a pretty good handle on what it costs to manufacture items, and the Elfa components clearly carry a huge markup compared to other similar products in this category.
One some of my numerous trips to Lowes, I had noticed some Rubbermaid systems that I didn't recall seeing before that looked very similar to the Elfa product. One of them is called "Home Free" and appears to be a closet system, and the other is "Fast Track" and appears to be a shelf-only product. The Rubbermaid website calls Fast Track a "closet system", but it doesn't seem to have the range of accessories you need for a closet. In my opinion, Rubbermaid does a very poor job of differentiating these products, potentially confusing consumers. To make things even worse, Rubbermaid seems to have a garage system also called Fast Track that looks to be completely incompatible with the closet/storage Fast Track system.
This brings me to this weekend's project, to upgrade a 7' x 7' storage room in our new home ("new" is a relative term, the house was built in the 80's and we moved in last October). This room is bare and had become a catch-all pile for a number of items and boxes that don't have anywhere else to go in our new house. I decided this would be a good place to try out the Rubbermaid Fast Track product.
In my next post, I'll discuss the installation and make a detailed comparison to the Elfa products...
