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As you said, there are wild variables- you could spend $500/room, or $5,000 (or more) per room. Are we talking just furniture, or accessories, wall art, kitchenware, etc., as well?
I think it depends what kind of furniture you want, too. We just moved from an extremely small home where we only had a few pieces of furniture to a 4-5 bedroom house. I like vintage stuff and have been having really good luck at antiques stores, Craigslist, and Salvation Army. If you like new/modern, you're going to pay more. For us, I capped the kitchen and bedrooms at $1000 each including furniture and decorating and have not spent nearly that much. I gave myself $5000 for the living room (includes a new giant TV, all decorations, and all furniture as we had no real living room stuff in the old house) and I will come in JUST under budget.
If you have essentials currently ie: bed, couch, dining table, dressers...
Why not save your money and purchase good solid hand made wood furniture that will last you a lifetime and look beautiful. A bit more expensive than cookie cutter furniture from Furniture Store but well worth the investment and the time it takes to save enough to pay cash for the items.
Definitely not in my experience, and not even close.
You can go to a Bob's discount furniture store, (a chain in CT,ME,MA,NH,NY), and get an 8-piece bedroom set for under $1K. Of course it is all particle/pressboard, masonite and likely made in China.... BEDROOMS
Just a decent (real) B&H student's lamp (not electified) for the night stand runs more than that. A decent antique sleigh bed also runs that, or more.
Another thing you have to factor in, are curtains for the rooms. Those don't run cheap for decent lined ones. Custom ones are really expensive.
We have always furnished in bits and pieces over time. A lot of time. Often we get something that is OK for now until we can afford what we really want. Our first house, we started out with most furniture made out of milk crates and blankets and some wooden table tops. You can make anything out of milk crates. When we moved into antique houses, we furnished with antiques one bit at a time. For a couple of years we had thanksgiving sitting on plankets in the dining room .
Nice antique furniture is expensive. It was expensive when it was new. Discount antique furniture is less expensive, but often is much better made than modern furniture.
However I think what was referred to is not antique vs. new, but 10 years old vs. new. We frequently see very nice upholstered or leather couch sets sell for $20 - $50 at auctions. People do nto usually want used upholstered furniture. It has an icky factor. Reupholstering is expensive. So you either find furniture that is basically unusuaed or you live with he Icky factor and clean it up as best you can. You will ickify your own furniture in a few months, so it really comes down to wehther you can tolerate only your own ick, or other people's ick as well. Even with your own furniture, most people will have guests who sweat, fart, sneeze, cough, drool, and otherwise decorate your furniture with slimy human effluvia. Thus, I do not see a huge difference in buying used upholsterd furniture in a few months it is all the same (unless it was owned by a smoker - then the only option is to re-upholster).
Hard furniture is easier to deal with. Hard surfaces do not aborb "ick" and you cna just wipe it down with murphys oil soap. Hard wood furniture is not always uncomfortable. We have several peices that are very nice.
One nice thing about antique furniture, a lot of is is uncomfrotable and therefore it is placed in a house as more of a decoration and rarely used. Not always true, but often. (OUr whole house is antique furniture, so we use it - but we have lots of thorw pillows around to make it more comfortable).
The previous owner of my 1600 square foot 3 bedroom house died in an terrible automobile accident, and I bought my house from her grown daughters shortly thereafter. I also bought all of the furniture, in a separate negotiation after we had settled on a price for the house. That furniture (including refrigerator) cost $1500.
You can furnish a house for much less by going to the Salvation Army.
Right now, ten years later, I am refurnishing my house, room by room, with "middle of the line" furniture. No warehouse sale furniture, but also I haven't set foot in Ethan Allen. It looks like I can get all of it done in my taste with reasonably solid furniture for about $5,000 or so. I spent $500 on my home office and $1,400 on my den so far. Next is my bedroom....
I'd suggest spending what you can afford first, buying the basics at Craig's List, the Salvation Army, and used furniture for sale at furniture rental stores.
Then when you have more to spend, and have lived in the house for a while so you know what you need, you can buy nicer furniture if you want to. You could buy one room of furniture at a time, like I am doing, to smooth out the financial hit. Another advantage of this approach is being able to take advantage of sales because you aren't desperate to have any particular piece of furniture immediately. There was nothing really wrong with the furniture I had (except it was 1970's style, need I say more). Now, I am able to take my time and figure out exactly what I want and need.
In my experience, as long as you're not looking for absolute perfection, yes. Especially when you compare quality.
Example: Today I bought a 100 year old bureau for my daughter's room. If the thing has been kicking around 100 years and has nothing structural wrong with it, I can be pretty sure it will last another 50 at least. Cost was $160. Here is the page for dressers at Walmart: http://www.walmart.com/browse/_/N-3y...eamUp3Dressers About the same cost, but do you think these will last 100 years?
I guess I should clarify and say I'm not talking about high end, crazy rare pieces from froufrou antiques stores. My favorite antiques place is owned by a guy who does estate cleanouts.
Last edited by A Nonny Mouse; 02-02-2012 at 04:15 PM..
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