Whether you’re a first time owner or renter or you’re starting from scratch with very little in the way of furniture then you’ll find these tips on how to furnish your home on a budget useful!
We knew for a while that Miss Frugal was going to move out but it took us a while to find the right place for the right price and when we did, it literally happened so fast that she viewed it on a Friday and was moving in the next Thursday so we didn’t have much time to actually do prepare much when it came to actually furnishing it.
We’d been getting ready with the smaller things for months (she has enough Zoflora and tea towels to last years) but the bigger stuff we wanted to leave until we knew how much space she would have in her new place so we couldn’t get started on that until we’d found the right place.
So we had a matter of days to try and sort out enough furniture to make the flat liveable and homey. We could have managed with less at that point but it was her first home of her own and we both really wanted to make it as nice and cosy as possible for her.
Once we’d had the talk about us not having a huge budget for the ‘wants’ as there were ‘needs’ that needed to be bought – we needed to buy a fridge pretty quickly for example even though they had the loan of a camping fridge as a temporary fix.
Then there was the realisation that we weren’t going to have a Pinterest pretty flat within a week of moving in and honestly, once we’d got that straight in our heads, we had a great time.
How to furnish your home on a budget!
1. Let your family and friends know that you’re moving!
You’ll be surprised how lovely people are when they know you’re moving and could do with some help. The very amazing Jen from The Madhouse literally sent her hubby and boys to my house with her two sofas for us to use which was just amazing and was the first thing we moved in and arranged on the day she picked her keys up. We also got the loan of a van and lots of other offers of help.
2. Make do with the things you do have!
Miss Frugal took her own bed with her even though she really didn’t want to as she wanted a Divan bed with storage to make the most of the space, she also took her dressing table and a mirror of my Mam’s that she’s had for years. She raided our garage for all kinds of random bits we had in there and even took some old cube storage units that had been in there for a couple of years. Not what she envisioned decorating her first home with but a good clean up and some new storage cubes from Amazon to go in the units and she’s got lots of practical storage that was much needed.
3. Use temporary solutions and gradually update.
She didn’t have a wardrobe other than the one in her bedroom which was genuinely part of her nursery furniture set three houses ago. It’s been such a good buy as we spent a bit more to make sure we got something that would last but I don’t think it’ll make it through another house move so it was going nowhere! Rather than buy a wardrobe straight away we bought this from Amazon…
We went for the rail instead of a wardrobe right away to save money as it would have been a big purchase at an already expensive time with everything we needed to buy but we’re going to get an IKEA wardrobe at some point in the future for her. This rail will go lovely in our now spare room so it won’t be wasted when we replace it with a wardrobe. Other temporary solutions are the TV cabinet which was in someone else’s garage, the light shades that we pulled together from all over the place and the curtains which do the job but don’t add anything to the look of the flat. 😂
4. Use charity shops, Facebook Marketplace and eBay
You can buy some lovely furniture in your local charity shops or online on Facebook Marketplace or eBay. I’ve found some great bargains over the years including a writing bureau for practically nothing and then I got a friend to give it a makeover.
My current dining table was a pre-loved bargain too and this one I bought for £100 and sold the chairs that came with it for about half of that as I already had chairs that I loved.
If you need to furnish your home on a budget then pre-loved is absolutely the way to go!
5. Learn to upcycle
Look at this table that we spotted in our local charity shop! There were two of them and we stood and considered them for a good ten minutes planning what we could do to upcycle them as they were a perfect size for her living room which is huge. In the end, our plan was to give them a good clean, sand them down and then paint with a fresh white coat of paint with the intention of putting one in each corner of the room.
We decided against them in the end because IKEA actually have their Lack side tables which cost £10 each and are more Miss Frugal’s style. We figured out that by the time we spent the time on upcycling these ones and then paying for the paint and varnish then we might as well just pay £10 for the new table from IKEA.
There’s not many things that you can buy new for such a good price though so learning to upcycle furniture can really help you if you need to furnish your home on a budget. If you use the same paint for all of the furniture you upcycle then you can buy cheaper pieces and make them look quite cohesive and matching.
So that’s how we helped Miss Frugal to furnish her new home on a budget!
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