I think Ikea is a fantastic store. For ideas and materials. If you're handy, you can retrofit the stuff into designs of your own. Some of the stuff I bought cheap I couldn't make unless paying more for the raw materials. For example, enclosed hinges, screws, wheels, sliding shelf brackets, etc. are very expensive elsewhere but dirt cheap in the furniture at Ikea. Same for electric light components and metal items. Ikea is an excellent place for young people to get cheap components to experiment with. They can then build on those components with machine tools like a saw table, router, bandsaw etc. using solid wood and make great furniture that they can be proud of. Get your kids off video games and into carpentry, and they'll like Ikea.
The area where you can get kitchen pot hangers, rack and shelf components, etc., is excellent.
The ‘Scratch and Dent’ section should always be visited; we got a brand-new sofa half-price, simply because it has a little tear in the fabric where nobody would see it anyway.
They have nice Christmas items, as well.
-JT
I paint and decorate a lot of the basic furniture. There are entire websites devoted to the technical details (use Zinssner shellac based primer, for example).