Furniture is almost entirely about comfort and functionality for me – not appearance. So I care about things like how comfortable my recliner is or how soft/firm my mattress is. I don’t care about other seats besides my recliner that I will not use. I don’t care about tables, inn tables, desks, lamps, … beyond how functional they are for their intended purpose.
I drove to my first apartment directly from campus, with no furniture. I arrived in the evening to an empty, unfurnished apartment and slept in a sleeping bag that night. The next day I used a portion of my sign-up bonus to buy furniture. It was not a particularly memorable experience. I bought a few items at furniture stores, generally the least expensive option I could find that served the intended functional purpose. I still have the kitchen table today, which is a small glass table, with 2 rolling chairs. It works well for its functional purpose, so no reason to change it. One key exception was my recliner. I bought a quality recliner from La-Z-Boy that was not among the less expensive options. However I found it very comfortable, and it lasted many years, until my GF broke it…
More recently my parents gave me a new recliner as a birthday/Christmas present this year because they noted that my existing recliner was in poor condition when they visited. It had a variety of tears, as well as broken sprigs in the seat bottom, giving it bucket seats. Nevertheless, I found it comfortable, so I kept using it.
Finding a new recliner was an involved process that took me many weeks, and included 2 different exchanges for something else. I eventually settled on a La-Z-Boy Reed rocker recliner with swivel base. The sales docs say the chair is intend for petite persons under 5’3", yet I find it fits me better than recliners intended for my size (I am >6ft). The armrests are at a natural distance, my feet can comfortably touch the floor without shoes, and my head rests on the soft pillow area of the chair if I lean back. It took months to break it in, but now I enjoy the new recliner and find it quite comfortable.