Friday, May 18, 2007

Buying Furniture?

I'm convinced I need to buy furniture but I hate trying to buy furniture for our house. There aer two major problems. One is size. We live in an 1880s Victorian converted townhouse, so our staircase is extremely narrow. We have three stories with our master bedroom being a converted attic. Sure our house is charming, but there is no space to get furniture upstairs. It's tough to even get stuff to the second floor!

So for us, we looked at 2 bedroom sets, and all furniture stores send a professional mover out with the furniture's measurement to measure for themselves if it will fit. I know how to measure, but these people do it professionally and can really tell if it will fit. After all our staircase has two solid walls so the width is less than 30 inches wide. Our TV made it upstairs but only after the movers dented the wall! Our neighbors who moved in after us, left their master bedroom set on the first and second floors and bought a whole new set for the master bedroom because it wouldn't fit. Our queen bed didn't fit until we bought a split boxspring.

Second problem is cost. We want to buy really good quality furniture that will last a long time. And that appears to cost a lot of money. We have no good quality furniture right now most of our stuff was used or free. We didn't spend more than $100 on anything, and that might have been for the dining set we bought to sell our old condo. We didn't have a dinner table, we bought a super cheap set for $100 and have kept it. It's so small that if we sit facing each other our knees bump. But we're the only people who eat at home, so why bother? I guess my other problem with cost is this is not our final home. I hate the idea of moving and not having our great furniture fit. That would drive me insane to have to rebuy stuff because it doesn't work with our new house layout. Also my parents are talking of downsizing and if they do, I really would love their dinner table. Yes it would cost a small fortune to ship, but it would be worth it, as it's 100% Koa wood, very hard to get anymore.

So right now I'm looking at craigslist for more used furniture. But the main hassle is figuring out what fits.

6 comments:

JW said...

Sometimes the Salvation Army, St. Vincent of DePaul or a local used goods store will have good, clean and well made used furniture.

You may also want to try Cheapcycle.com or Freecycle.org

Living Almost Large said...

Thanks, I've been lucky enough to see a few sets I like, but I've found that I'm not sure if they fit and unlike a new set I can't exactly return it.

Anonymous said...

I have enjoyed your blog...

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Unknown said...

I spent hours looking at every furniture store within an hour radius of my home. Finally out of desperation I took a friend's advice and decided to try to buy furniture online.I visit online furniture store, www.ezbuyfurniture.com. I quickly found my favorite furniture that was within my budget. It arrived quickly. The entire experience changed my opinion of buying furniture online. I completely recommend the process.