I am in this same position. I don't want to spend a fortune, but I also don't want my furniture to be wobbly or peeling laminate in a few years. Secondhand offe

I am in this same position. I don't want to spend a fortune, but I also don't want my furniture to be wobbly or peeling laminate in a few years. Secondhand offers some good options here, but you can't necessarily find exactly what you're looking for. Apart from that, the market is surprisingly barren in this area. I got into woodworking for this reason (using mostly secondhand tools and YouTube). I make myself midrange furniture out of pine and plywood. It's not as fancy as expensive hardwood furniture, but it still cleans up very nicely with some time spent painting or shellacking. It looks (and feels!) so much nicer than Ikea's laminate offerings, and it should easily last me the rest of my life and then some. Plus, I get to make it exactly the way I want it.