Be grateful for IKEA

Fantastic Furniture should be sued for false advertising. Though, I hope they don't read this because the other week we were testing a coffee table and the contact covered mdf, or whatever it was made of, broke, so we hightailed it outta there. Ahem. By "testing a coffee table" I mean my partner stood on it to see if it would hold the weight of our two year old daughter...yes, I know. She is approximately 60kg lighter than he is, but you know, we want a sturdy coffee table. Unfortuantely, the sturdy ones seem to be found only in Harvey Norman and cost more than our weekly income. If we only had Ikea *cue glorious Rogers & Hammerstein song straight out of a musical* I am certain we could find something slightly sturdier, roughly the same price, that is aesthetically pleasing. Ikea don't ship interstate even though they have a half-hearted online shopping facility, and I'm not sure a coffee table would come in under weight/size restrictions on the el cheapo flights if we bothered to go to Melbourne to get one. Fantastic Furniture is not, in fact, fantastic. It's shit. If you want to makeover your living room, get Changing Rooms to come in and paint a bookshelf on your wall because it will be safer than using a FF shelving system (they did this once, I'll never forget, painted a bookself onto the wall and reckoned it was fantastic. Why did that show ever get axed, one muses?) Fantastic, is no doubt, actually marvellous if you're a uni student sick of sleeping on the couch your roomate got from the outside the neighbours house last rubbish night and you'd prefer an mdf-styled abode over a Young Ones-esque share house. Or if you live in a lower socio-economic suburb and want to spend your baby bonus kitting out your unit. IKEA is not the Gucci of home furnishings (because presumably Gucci is) but at least it's an option. And even if you fall through your IKEA coffee table and need some ideas on how to hide the evidence, or if the demise of the home-reno show has left you itching for some DIY ideas, check out Ikea Hacker . It even has Quikea tips for when you need to zip in and out - an impossible task, but if faced with it, be grateful. It beats fleeing Fantastic with mdf splinters.