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I didn’t buy any furniture. I already had the basics and over the year I’ve lived in my home I swapped / upgraded pieces but I didn’t buy things immediately after moving in.
Big purchases that came up for me were refinishing hardwood floors and a light bathroom update (paint, mirror, light fixture).
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Living room furniture, master bed + mattress, Dining table(all $8k). We live in Florida so we had to get water softener + purifier from Costco ($4k). Blinds ($4k). Security system.(~$3k) We took new credit cards to get those points.
Which credit card?
Let it be empty/sparse for a few months.
Start with a bedroom set (if going with a larger mattress), then give yourself time to figure out the house and how you'll use it. We'd have wasted thousands if we tried to fill every room on day one. Every house has a different flow, as do the people living in them.
Totally agree with this! I rushed to fill rooms with furniture and ended up hating it and now trying to sell off that furniture. Give it awhile. Buy something temporary and cheap off Facebook marketplace while you decide what you want. My entire vision of colors etc changed after I’d been in my house for a few months. For big expenses, I had no idea how expensive hiring a painter was. Painting your kitchen cabinets is thousands of dollars. I had to have a very small section of fence put in last fall and due to lumber prices it was like $2500. My hot water heat broke a few months in and it was $1200 to get a new one installed (home warranty covered $400). My gas/water bill was much higher than I thought it would be too. But over all, relax, don’t rush to “finish” anything, and congrats!!!
Spent about 175k.
What...
I mean it depends… we bought a tempur pedic mattress set and higher end bedroom / living room furniture. Also went for a nice office but then mostly ikea for the guest room and dining room. We probably spent 25-30k
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It is a lot. Of course, with that kind of income, you can afford a lot, and probably could have afforded more. And if you like it, you should get it! No shame.
But it is a lot.
Ha! I’m so damn cheap that we basically moved into a 4 BR 2000 sft house with our 1 BR apartment furniture. We filled in as we saw fit, but we also aren’t fancy.
I know folks who don’t even have the money to buy the house in the first place and go into further debt financing furniture. Spend what you can comfortably afford and what you NEED. Don’t feel pressure to fill every room if you don’t have a need yet.
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If you have young kids then please don't bother buying very expensive furniture. My cute little babies have managed to ruin every furniture item in house when they were below 7-8 yr.
Hm... definitely will need to think about that. Currently DINK but plan on having kids soon
I did it over the first five years in my house. Brought in some furniture which we replaced with new in subsequent years. Living in the house longer made me also realize that I wanted the house and it’s rooms to be used differently than the owner before me. Simple example is that one bedroom is now a library/office. That requires different furniture. So I think it helps to take time. It also took me a while to figure out the style I wanted and the right furniture stores so that things match and complete each other well but aren’t too uniform/one store stop.
Oh if I was going through this again, I’d really take things slowly and really think about what I want my space to look like.
I filled up the space quickly with low cost items (Amazon finds and some nicer things off FB marketplace). Now that we’ve been here almost 4 years, there’s certain things I wished flowed better throughout our home, but I can’t justify throwing away furniture that functions fine simply because my taste changed.
Other rooms where I realllly thought about what I wanted (my bedroom, my office) I still love years later. So, I guess take your time in doing it.
Try to wait until you find sie piece of furniture (or rug, or artwork, or whatever) that you really LOVE, that will make you happy every time you look at it, and plan a room around that. Don’t fill just to fill.
Currently moving into a 4 bedroom, 3 flex rooms in the attic, dining room, living room and family room house from a two bedroom condo. Plan to live there and add furniture and upgrade what we have once we have figured out how we want to use the space. Right now we have spent most of the money on paint, dehumidifier, smoke alarms, and new washer and dryer.
I’m closing on a house soon and have a budget of 40K for furniture + appliances for a 3 bedroom house. The budget is broken up into immediate vs long term needs (I.e. to purchase over the next year). My advice would be to consider lead times for furniture and delivery costs since those can add up fast.
A lot of furniture stores charge a flat delivery fee no matter how many items you order, so I’d recommend planning out all your purchases before ordering anything and then only make one order at each store to save delivery fees
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Don't load up too much soon. House with few expensive items put in nicely is much better than inexpensive clutter. We spent 15k so far.you want to spend big money on buying quality for Heavy And most commonly used things like Dining ,sofa ,mattress, 1 luxary bedset for master, 2 beds, office furniture came to 10k. I got amazing painting on FB for 600. Those would have cost me 5k easily if bought from gallaries. We bought rugs,dressers , kids furniture and few decorative stands from Costco which would have been 2k. Ikea also have some good furniture but don't count on it lasting longer if you plan to use to heavily.
I’d say quality over quantity. For big pieces that will get a lot of usage like couch, bed, mattress, invest in high quality pieces. Cheap ones might look ok on day 1 but will probably look terrible in 1-2 years and will end up costing you more to replace them. Just focus on the key pieces and take your time with furnishing other space you don’t use often (guest room, basement etc).
For a 2BR apartment, probably spend about $10k. That includes cost of wood projects I did though
I bought it 4 years ago and still have empty rooms. Don't go overboard at first. Have essentials? Live in the house for a while and see how it feels. Ideas will come to you.
I'm glad I did because it seems as though everything major needed to be repaired or replaced. Such as entire hvac, bathroom (wall caved in from mold, had to remodel before wanted), cracked foundation (that was fun during rainy season), and a plethora of other things. Sooo if I'd gone crazy with furnishings, I would have blown my budgets.
I will say that after living here for 4 years, my ideas of what should be in the rooms that are still empty have changed. They are speaking differently now.
I went from a 600sq ft 1 bedroom apartment to a 2500 sq ft 3 bedroom townhome with a den. I took nothing from the old apartment except my old bed I put in the guest bedroom. I spent roughly $40-$50k to furnish the townhome, including washer and dryer and an interior designer. I don’t have any artwork on the wall so when I get that it will be a separate expense
Can I ask how much your interior designer charged? Also did you feel like it was worth getting one?