I recently moved (once again) to the European continent. And as Uncle Ben more or less said: with great moves come great purchases. After a surprisingly brief period of house hunting, my wife and I ended up having to plan the furniture for the new home. The priority was general utensils (it’s always good to have, I don’t know, a glass or a spoon available) and the Sofa. The first course of action was clear: let’s go to Ikea.

The store itself, as anyone who’s been there knows, isn’t very different from a Leroy Merlin or any other large store with a massive parking lot. Theoretically, that’s the main attraction: a family outing, traveling through the different settings, eating some Swedish food, and leaving happy. But what really caught my attention is the so-called Nordic design. Simple, straightforward, functional. It also has a singular elegance that conveys that feeling of “if this were somewhere else, it would be more expensive.” Furthermore, treating utensils and furniture as a collection is a brilliant idea. I’ll buy a set of RANDOM_SWEDISH_WORD glasses, and to keep the design consistent, maybe I’ll also get the matching cup and Tupperware from the same collection.

To me, this is democratic: planning any item in your home and choosing from different designs, making things match each other, all at a ridiculously low price, without having to rely on the random low-cost offerings of a Chinese bazaar if you want to save money.