Between the sofa that I inherited from my parents and the chairs that I accumulated in Virginia thrift stores, I've never really needed to worry about furniture all that much. However, now that the sofa has died an honorable death and we're living in a new place, my wife has put her foot down: we need to buy new furniture.

Of course, we'll probably end up going the IKEA route. Their pieces are fairly durable and looks nice, although a bit generic. My wife really likes the EKTORP series loveseats. Personally, I think that "EKTORP" sounds like the noise a cat makes when it's vomiting, but I have to admit that the furniture is blandly appealing. On the bright side, the slipcovers are really reasonable, which is a pretty big selling point, given that our 2-year old daughter has juice-spilling issues.

On the other hand, we recently came across HomeReserve.com. Like IKEA, HomeReserve sells furniture that is designed for self-assembly. It comes in a wide array of fabrics and colors, and (supposedly) only requires a screwdriver to put together. Also, like IKEA, Home Reserve sells an array of slipcovers. On the other side, Home Reserve's lines are all designed for shipping, and their costs are surprisingly reasonable. Best of all, their prices are significantly less than IKEA's.

Definitely something to think about...

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. His wife has made it abundantly clear that thrift store furniture shopping is NOT happening in New York.

Grand openings in New York are usually something to avoid at all costs, but yesterday, I had promised my 2-year-old a trip to the park and it was raining. So we all packed into the car for a 5-minute trip to the new IKEA in Red Hook, Brooklyn to check out their indoor play land.

In other towns, the opening of a big-box store might not be so game-changing, but IKEA has been controversial from the start because it is so not Red Hook, where even the shooting of "The Sopranos" was squashed by locals. A Fairway supermarket snuck in, just a few blocks away, but with its fresh produce and artsy feel, it has not engendered any bad feelings.

IKEA, on the other hand, is a giant blue and yellow monstrosity the peeks out from between abandoned factory buildings and loading dock cranes. It's parking lots cover wide swaths of shoreline and are ringed by low-slung townhouses in disrepair -- the gentrified converted lofts and luxury condos are still a few blocks over.

Judging by the crowd on opening day, it's going to be a huge success and a huge nightmare at the same time, just like the few other big-box stores in Brooklyn. Any time you mix huge volumes of people with discount merchandise, you're going to move a lot of product off the shelves and it's going to be messy.

Some deals only come around once or twice a year, but offer savings that justify the wait. This post is part of our series on such 'don't miss' sales.

If words like "Leksvik", "Malm" and "Hemnes" don't sound like an exotic type of pickled herring to you, chances are you are an Ikea shopper.

You also are probably an Ikea shopper if you are in your first apartment or live in a neighborhood where it's important to be trendy on a budget. Maybe you like the store's merging of cool Scandinavian design with functionality and the yummy Swedish meatballs in the cafeteria.

Regardless, you probably like the chain's "impossibly low" prices. I know I did when I worked there during the chain's early days in the U.S. I was there in Plymouth Meeting, Pa. when the store opened its doors for the first time. Throngs of people came in to gawk at the ultra-hip home furnishings. I was in the plant department even though I didn't know anything about them. However, I think I correctly advised one customer that his plants probably kept dying because he kept them on the radiator.

The prices are pretty reasonable on most things. Anyone looking for a real bargain can occasionally find them in the room where returned goods are kept though they are sometimes damaged. Ikea does run occasional promotions such as a $150 gift card with the purchase of any mattress. But anyone looking for real bargains, though, has to wait for the once a year twice a year sales.

Stores knock off 20 to 60% off selected merchandise. The company also has done clever promotions where people can "rent" Christmas trees and return them to the store to get recycled. Sometimes customers get cash back and gift cards.

The deals, though, are almost as sweet as Swedish lingonberries most of the year.

Every time I walk through the IKEA showroom here in Portland, I sigh and say something like, "I wish I could just move in!" Especially when my bathroom's a mess. And all the books and kitchenware and toys, so organized. I'm getting misty-eyed just thinking about it.

What if it were true? In a scene that seems something out of a movie starring Tom Hanks or Adam Sandler, Mark Malkoff is living in IKEA. His apartment was being fumigated, and he thought to himself, why not ask IKEA? Surprisingly, the Paramus, New Jersey store agreed, and he moved in Monday morning, January 7. He'll stay through January 12th, eating all his meals at the IKEA cafeteria and filming his sometimes-endearing, other times-discomfiting antics for his web site.

By my calculation, he'll save about $1,400 by staying in IKEA instead of a hotel in Manhattan (assuming he's fairly economical and eats on $50 a day).