My view on IKEA is this:
For a rented property that you'll have to move out of, and will invariably find existing furniture a nuisance whenever you move (especially moving from an unfurnished property to a furnished one) - IKEA is perfect. It's cheap enough that you wouldn't have to mourn the financial loss, even if you have to ditch the furniture (in the worst case scenario).
But once I move into somewhere more permanent, I would prefer to have better made furniture that isn't all flat-pack - not the least because things like beds don't seem to stand up too well to being fastened together with a bunch of nuts and bolts (excessive creaking) and some lapses in detail (sharp edges in places etc). I must give special mention to the Billy bookshelves, though - probably the best single item from IKEA, ever.
At the moment, I live in an unfurnished flat that I don't plan to live in forever (2-3 years at best) so me and my partner kitted out the whole flat (literally from scratch, ranging from sofas to beds and desk/shelves, everything) from IKEA for ~£1,200. It's not the cheapest (Argos probably cheaper yet, but not willing to stoop that low) and I will probably have recurring nightmares of being surrounded by massive cardboard boxes after unpacking the endless slabs of wood etc, but all in all it was a pretty good deal.
