IKEA is good for the rag rugs that I replace every few years. Cats. Claws. No point in nice things.

(not really. But the rugs are one thing that the cats like to ruck up and kill on occasion.)

See, since most of the furniture we had in our apartment in NJ was either Salvation Army bought or salvaged from off the street, IKEA would have seemed like a step up. And since we now live in a one bedroom that's about the size of our NJ studio, we even wound up having to get rid of most of the off the street furniture we had. But, the little bit of furniture we do have now is from actual furniture stores, not IKEA. I tried to take DH there and he hated just about everything with a passion.

No, I lie. We have two stools which we bought from IKEA and DH promptly covered with some cushy foam and zebra stripe fabric. It was like my own personal version of Trading Spaces.

IKEA is good for the rag rugs that I replace every few years. Cats. Claws. No point in nice things.

Whenever I go through a store of nice home furnishing, I mentally divide everything in the store into two categories: Things the cat will destroy, and Things the cat will not destroy.

Yeah, I have a dog hair scale that I rate furniture and clothing on before purchase. Thankfully we're past the stage of needing the dog teeth scale as well.

My mental calculus is will cathair show and do I care if it does?

xpost: hah!

Mine aren't that destructive, limiting themselves to killing rugs and one back corner of the loveseat that I didn't know about for ages. Oh and Mister Kitty has a thing about pulling strings, so he can't be in my closet.

Why no more IKEA, Tom?

All my IKEA furniture is falling apart, or permanently scarred by minor bumps. I just want something a little more solid.

I'm tired of furniture I have to put together myself. Most of the IKEA stuff I've bought seemed like a good idea at the time, but less with the love as time goes by.

My current apartment has one IKEA piece, a few Target pieces (but one broke so annoyingly that I'm not bothering to go back) and stuff from Cost Plus World Market. I like the World Market stuff. It's nice and heavy, and really really simple to put together. Though I still don't like doing that.

I only have 4 actual pieces of furniture from IKEA (wall shelf, shelf unit, tv stand and my dining room table.) I usually go there for odds and ends like rugs, a teapot, frames or whatever. I got a set of blue glass dishes and bowls there that I like.

The World Market stuff looks nice. Hasn't made it to this part of the world yet, unfortunately.

I've never had a piece of IKEA furniture last more than a year. I've had enough people tell me "But my IKEA couch has lasted 15 years!" to suspect that 15 years ago, they were making much sturdier furniture.

Plush Passover plagues! Too cute.