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Unless you consider paying 10 bucks for a two inch wooden train cheap, they are so not cheap. It costs hundreds of dollars to assemble a set of those wooden trains. I've done it.
I live in the DC area and recently went shopping for furniture. I considered IKEA, but I did want better quality than that. However, when doing searches online for stores in my area, I noticed that more than a few of them have gone out of business. There are high-end furniture places, like Ethan Allen, but with a budget of about 5000.00 for an entire room, half of my money would be taken up with just the cost of the sofa. Skan (which we like to call "Ikea for grownups") went out of business a few years ago and even Marlo is gone. The choice that I had was IKEA, or a similar store, like Room Store or Z furniture, or go very high end and deal with doubling my furniture cost. It's crazy.
Personally, I kind of hate IKEA because I'm terrible at assembly. I also would prefer quality furniture that will last. However, if faced with the decision to buy something cheaper now or sit in an empty room while I save for 2 years, I'll go for the cheaper stuff and hope to save for something better down the road a bit. I don't think I'm alone in that.
