Furniture Fight: Home Depot vs. Pottery Barn Bookcases

Briana and I are starting a new series called Furniture Fights.  We love thrift store furniture, but not everyone is surrounded by fabulous Habitat ReStores like Briana (D.C. is a barren wasteland when it comes to second hand furniture stores - everything has either been marked "antique" or "vintage" and is being sold at some snooty shop with a price tag to go with it orrrrrrrr you have to spend your life perusing Craig's List and estate sales and hoping for the best - so, sometimes you have to buy new.  The idea behind Furniture Fights is to show two similar pieces of new furniture with a high and low price.  We fully believe that you should invest in the best quality furniture you can afford, but we know that everyone's price point is different.  We also know that there are certain items that you can get away with spending less on (i.e. rarely used side chairs and anything involving lamps) and pieces of furniture that are purely decorative in nature (and therefore, may not need to have a solid hardwood construction).  We hope y'all will use these articles to get inspired to do some comparison shopping, save where you can, and splurge when it's important!  

Remember last week how I blogged about Mr. 3's new desk for his home office (which we got for $49 from Home Depot!)?  I mentioned that the five-shelf bookcase that was also a part of the collection was very Pottery Barn-esque, but didn't include a side-by-side comparison.  Here's the Home Depot version:

Home Decorators Collection Kelman 5-Shelf Bookcase in Walnut
$49
Image Source: Home Depot

I found that there are actually two similar-looking Pottery Barn options:

Studio Wall Shelf
$359 for one or $718 for two
Image Source: Pottery Barn

Morgan Leaning Bookcase
$599
Image Source: Pottery Barn

I love all three options and I think they would all work in the same type of space for the same uses (i.e. book shelves, china display/storage, and displaying knick knacks).  Pottery Barn isn't too specific on the construction details of the Studio Wall Shelf, but the Morgan Leaning Bookcase is made from iron and kiln-dried acacia wood.  For the price, I would definitely go with the Home Depot option especially if you need more than one shelf.  These pieces are largely for decoration.  If you are storing heavier items (like textbooks or china), be cognizant of putting too much on the shelves, but I imagine it will be several years before they wear out.

Posh Purpose Furniture Fight Winner: Home Depot!

Which would you pick in our first Furniture Fight?