Intelligencer - Everything Yellow I’d Buy at IKEA

I love getting texts from my pregnant friends asking me about the big-ticket items for their registries: What stroller should I get? What crib do you have? Does the Snoo work? (Answer: It did for me, but rent instead of buying it.)

If you want a sofa that’s well made, I think you need to spend at least $1,000, but $2,000 will get you something even better. I still love the (now discontinued) Crate & Barrel sofa we bought ten years ago, which cost around $2,000 at the time; it’s as comfortable and stylish as on day one and the cushions still look great.

As the Strategist’s bedding expert, I’m constantly doing the laundry and making the bed with all kinds of different sheets — sateen, percale, linen, bamboo, jersey, you name it. I’ve actually loved getting to know each type of material, because each one feels so distinct.

The Strategist team often daydreams about taking a field trip to Ikea, but until then, here are a few things we’ve shared in Slack recently: I love this reissued-from-the-’70s yellow side table that someone on X said was heavily inspired by a Marcel Breuer piece; continuing with the yellow theme, my colleague Liza Corsillo just bought this cute little lamp for $18 that I’d love for one of the kid’s rooms, and this (also reissued) armchair would tie it all together.

I’ve been coveting a Japanese donabe from Toiro for a while, but I don’t know which one to get. I want one that can make rice but also stews and other dishes. I love my Cuckoo rice cooker, but rice can take 40 minutes, a lifetime when I’m rushing to get dinner on the table for two screaming kids. My friend told me that she can make rice in 11 minutes with her donabe, which sounds impossible, but now I’m dying to try it for myself.