I have been making my own furniture these past few days, having decided that, for example, a bedside table would look nice next to my bed instead of a couple of cardboard boxes with an alarm clock on top. I would have liked to have started with a solid block of English oak, to be whittled into something appropriately shaped, with drawers and everything, but decided it would be quicker, and involve less sawdust, to buy one from Ikea.
It's been a while since I last tried my hand at assembling flatpack furniture. There is a certain charm about how Scandinavian ingenuity manages to reduce a sturdy household item into a pile of assorted chipboard with strategically placed screw holes, and a myriad of uniquely shaped fixtures to hold the thing together. And it somehow all comes together, at least most of the time, to reveal a stylish and useful piece of furniture. Although I notice they seem quite concerned about their furniture falling over, so they are forever reminding you to nail things to walls, and find a way of preventing small children climbing up them.
Thinking of Scandinavian construction kits, the joy of Lego is the ability to take it to pieces and build something novel that no one else has ever dreamed of. You could extend the same idea to Ikea, and try going around the house dismantling every item of furniture, mixing up the components, and seeing whether you can design an object that has never been seen before. Especially one which can offer a useful storage space. And doesn't fall over.
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