I spent many many hours looking for future for our current house. Our budget wasn't unlimited however it also wasn't survive on a shoe string.
I looked everywhere including high end stuff or antique type stuff and discovered that nice stuff was often impractically sized (too big for a standard sized British room, never mind small British room) or not terribly functional for what it was needed for. Unless you went bespoke fitting or bespoke made.
Book shelves were particularly true on this. Especially if you have a lot of books and need a lot of shelves. More expensive shelves could not be adjusted with extra shelves added. And what do you actually need from bookshelves? You might get fancy shaped ones, but that reduces your storage space. You can not beat The Billy, especially if finance does ultimately come into it. Other imitations are available but the quality and flexibility doesn't match up to The Billy.
If you are living in a small cottage, with limited space and your taste is for more modern furniture you can't go wrong with IKEA. Even John Lewis stuff isn't that much of a step up, before you even factor the cost in and the dimensions of it don't lend themselves as easily to a cottage. It's nice but not as functional. I remember there was a big uproar locally about 20 years ago when a new housing estate was built because the stairwells were very narrow and had a bend in them, meaning people couldn't get large ready made furniture upstairs and had to buy flat pack! Oh the horror! Some of the NIMBYs had a complete meltdown over it. So I can't imagine the trauma this has caused to Harry.
IKEA is brilliant. It's the ronseal of the furniture world. I also somehow doubt the sofa was bottom of the range anyway.
I wonder if they paid the extra for assembly? Harry with an IKEA instruction manual is the stuff of satire gold. Cartoonists and writers will be in heaven.
Imagine Harry and Meghan traipsing around IKEA. It'd be like a Royal snobby version of the episode of Father Ted where the priests get lost in the lingerie department and can't escape and can't possibly be caught being seen there. Or various sketches featuring people waving their IKEA Family Cards at Harry and Meghan.
And then to cap off the story of sticking it on your wife's credit card as if almost to imply being hard up? (Legitimately getting on your credit card makes sense for large purchases as you have more consumer protection, but you don't mention the method you bought it with to highlight this angle).
I think the whole anecdote is utterly hilarious and very revealing. And it's got nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the Family.
It just looks like a pretty standard sibling rivalry to me that's being turned into a soap opera by someone who can't grasp his own irony.