> You don’t want your home to feel like an ikea catalog surely!?

I do. Now what.

You go to IKEA!

> You don’t want your home to feel like an ikea catalog surely!?

Who wouldn't? The people that arranged the furniture in those renders have a much better idea of interior design than I do.

It’s your home. Nobody knows how it should be better than you.

There's at least one YouTuber that makes a decent living off of taking people's home design and improving it, so that's not universal.

If it were up to me I'd be stuck at the local optimum of standing desks with workstations randomly distributed through the apartment and a mattress in some corner.

Thankfully my wife also has a vote on things.

Design it's just a shitty word that means "I'm too poor to afford good materials".

Not sure why the fixation with Ikea, they provide decent value at given price point (as in better than competition, but still within their cost band).

Anyway one prime example I can see - we have rather bigger kitchen, and storage is its prime function. Anything below waist needs to have pullout drawers, its supremely more practical and simply more efficient for storage. You don't need to go on your knees every time you need something deeper in bottom one. For older folks this is an absolute must. Good luck finding any older kitchen that has that. Same for any drawers ie for clothing.

And there are much better modern tricks than just this very basic one.

> provide decent value at given price point

That is the reason for the fixation on IKEA: the "decent" part. If their peers are Target, Walmart, then to be sure IKEA are decent.

Even during assembly though I've had joints fail such that the finished piece of furniture is, say, 90% structurally sound. But then trying to disassemble the piece so I can move ... I'm lucky if I am able to disassemble it without additional component failure. And then the re-assembly after the move also takes its toll.

Sadly I've come to see IKEA furniture as disposable (I sure don't see it in the local Goodwill). And that is the problem with IKEA (and Target, and Walmart) furniture: it goes direct-to-landfill with a move.

one thing to realize with Ikea is that they have different tiers of items. their hardboard furniture is somewhat disposable (and not disassemblable). their metal and plastic items, otoh are pretty indistructable.

Disassembly is the mistake. If you need to move Ikea furniture, you do it as constructed. If it breaks, c’est la vie. I have successfully moved several Ikea pieces without issue.

> best interiors feel lived in but not stuffy. A few old pieces of furniture can help achieve that

I have a few old Ikea pieces for that.