Ikea

I hate Ikea. Its popularity astonishes me. Never have so many bought so much crap from so few. Most of the time, the crap doesn't even have the decency to look like crap: it's veneered. Any craftsman worth his table saw takes one look at this shit and gasps in horror. Douglas Coupland said it best when he described it as "semi-disposable furniture".

That ranted, I like exactly one Ikea product: "Gorm" shelving. Don't get me wrong: it's crap too. But it's crap that suits a purpose: cheap, extensible, modular bulk storage. I own probably a couple thousand bucks worth of it, which is a lot of shelving. It fills my basement and my garage. Put end caps on the posts to guard against rot (the entire thing is made of cheap softwood, held together with brads) and it's actually reasonably durable. Make sure none of the pieces you buy are split, and it's a bargain. Throw a hex head bit on your drill and crank the torque down so that you don't drive the screws right through the posts and you can put together thirty-six feet of deep shelving in under half an hour. Make sure you anchor it to walls or other convenient points, cross brace it where necessary, and it'll stay standing. Barely adequate engineering and construction: crap that works. I'll take it.