The Super Official Homeowners Thread

[Apoc]

Yeah, we spent $1500 on both our bedroom sets... and the last one got replaced after we had it for 12 years.

Our current furniture is a mix of overstock.com, vintage mid-century that we got on CL or via antique/consignment, or custom made. Two of our custom things were over $1000 - couch and entertainment center - but I have very specific tastes and most everything else was in the $500 range. We replaced literally everything in our house with period specific furniture and did the nursery for probably $8,000. It didn't hurt that we went from 2900 sqft to 1900. I don't miss the days of filing rooms we never use.

The nice thing about mid-century is it does not depreciate thanks to Mad Men. :lol:

[D_Eclipse9916]

One thing I learned is buy once, cry once. Also Costco has remarkably good furniture and that good chairs are worth their weight in gold (after having friends break multiples of our chairs). Our bedroom set is Costco and was not as cheap as $1,500 but close and it's very good quality. All of the stuff I have bought at furniture stores (Ashleys/Home Store/etc) has been great for the first 2 years then starts to show some age. Really depressing when spending hundreds gets you crap, you gotta spend $$$$

All our Nursery stuff is Pottery Barn that I bought through a fellow racer for 1/5 the price of new and we know we can resell for as much or more. Going to try to leverage this more, but we are almost done with the house so hopefully no more large furniture purchases. Though we still need a dining room table as our World Market one cracked (again good for one to two years), luckily in a spot you can't tell ha!

[JustinG]

I guess you don't have to be a homeowner to talk about furniture buying, but one thing you learn when buying your first home (or upsizing as in our case and have to buy more) is that furniture is laughably expensive. The days of Craigslist bargain beater couch don't work anymore when you get past the bachelor stage. I don't mind spending money on quality things but I cannot bring myself to spend $10-15k like some people around here do just for a damn bedroom set.

We were in the same boat. Our new place was a significant size upgrade from our old place. Old place had stuff in it from college.....It was time to let go of the futon.

Considering we now have 2 living rooms, an upstairs loft and our open space downstairs we had to get more furniture. We put the old stuff, which was a Rooms 2 Go living room set (which has held up for 8 years and is holding strong), in the loft. We then got some stuff from C&B to furnish downstairs, they appear to make quality furniture that isn't horribly expensive but by no means cheap. Some of the stuff in that place is retarded expensive.

We went into Ashley furniture and immediately turned back around. Half of their stuff looks like Rooms to Go sets but 3x the price.

We also found some good stuff at IKEA of all places, if you look past all of the particle board, contemporary pieces and dorm room furniture, they have some nice traditional looking Solid Wood pieces. People are surprised when they ask where certain pieces came from and we tell em IKEA.

I also refinished pieces from our old house to match better with this place. A $100 hutch turned into our coffee bar, and my college bed frame, an Ikea Malm, was painted white for the guest room. Repainted our bar and redid the bartop.


Stolen from Casey's FB.

Old bar


New bar


Refinished IKEA Malm



One thing we also found is these little shops popping up that house multiple Etsy style vendors who copy the stupid expensive furniture and sell it for half the price. Some friends just had a farm house table made by a vendor at one of the shops with benches for $900ish, and that same style table at Pottery Barn or C&B was $1500 just for the freaking table.

My dad built us this 6ft Farmhouse table with 2 benches, it cost us $300 in materials.

[Apoc]

Someone please tell Mike that Justin has two living rooms.

[JustinG]

Considering we now have 2 living rooms, an upstairs loft and our open space downstairs we had to get more furniture.

Someone please tell Mike that Justin has two living rooms.

I clarified.... :bootyshake:

[WRXtranceformed]

Yeah IKEA believe it or not does have some decent stuff, I got a Hemnes entertainment hutch / cabinets that's in my man cave now for a reasonable price considering how big and decently made it was:



Ours looks like that except with double door cabinets with the half glass door inserts on either side:



We have also had an explosion of small shops that partner with local furnituremakers or are simply rent-a-space outlets for handy entrepreneurs who refinish furniture and resell it. You can definitely find some good deals in those. Oh and Hobby Lobby or At Home for decorative stuff, best selections and prices for new things.

[WRXtranceformed]

Oh and not to completely shit on high dollar furniture purchases, because like Chris if you have a theme you are going for and want to do it that's fine. My father is an antiques dealer and sells mostly 1700-1800s period furniture to people who pay a LOT for those types of things. But in some ways that is an investment and you have to be really into that stuff (which most people nowadays aren't)

[JustinG]

Hemnes is the exact same IKEA stuff we got, but in white.

On another note....I think rugs are overpriced more so than furniture. But we have had good luck with esalerugs.com

[JustinG]

Side note....the 2 lots next to us sold last week. Really curious how loud the next 3-6 months will be around here.

[WRXtranceformed]

Side note....the 2 lots next to us sold last week. Really curious how loud the next 3-6 months will be around here.

It's gonna be loud, framing will be the loudest. Once the siding goes on it won't be terrible, but the framers and roofers here have been working well past dark. The biggest annoyance will be nails in the road, if you can try to avoid driving in front of those until they are basically finished.

Agreed on the rugs comment, I refuse to buy them as my dad's former business was selling "real" Oriental rugs from the mid-East (not Chinese machine made crap). Most of the rugs in our house, including the one in the picture, were pre-embargo Iranian rugs or Pakistani all hand made and $$$. I would never buy them but they were gifted to me over the years as he got rid of his inventory.

[Apoc]

Considering we now have 2 living rooms, an upstairs loft and our open space downstairs we had to get more furniture.

Someone please tell Mike that Justin has two living rooms.

I clarified.... :bootyshake:

Yeah... cause that made it better. :lol:

[Apoc]

I will never own anything from Ikea every again and I look down my nose on anyone who does.

I think my favorite piece of furniture we have is this MCM bar cabinet. Not only did we get a good deal, but I also convinced the sellers to load it into our car. :lol:

[WRXtranceformed]

I will never own anything from Ikea every again and I look down my nose on anyone who does.

Peasants!! :lol: :lol:

That is a nice bar! Moving furniture can really suck and owning a truck is massively helpful. I fit that bigass table and all 4 chairs in my bed last night. Having a small wife makes it hard though as that top was HEAVY and we put a little drywall dinger getting it out last night because she was having a hard time with it. Fortunately my neighbor happened to be getting home from work when I pulled in the driveway with it and offered to help get it into our house. Moving and maneuvering a lot of really heavy furniture though is one of my least favorite activities.

+ points for getting the seller to help. Unfortunately our table was purchased from an older woman "who was on pain meds for her back" so I wasn't going to make her schlep that thing out to the truck :lol:

[Apoc]

I was on meds for my back and my wife was 7 months pregnant. My back is so shitty, but I don't think I've moved furniture in 2 years because of it. It helps to make friends with people from your crossfit gym, even if you barely make it out anymore.

[Sully]

So it sounds like the fiancé and I will be looking for a place for ourselves soon. Here's my problem (besides that she's still in school and not working yet). I really don't want to rent. But I don't know what we could afford in a house and I'm not sure it would be in a area we would be happy in. So I figured we could rent for a year or so and save up for at least the area we'd like if not the house (probably not with our plans) but everything I'm seeing for rent is either $1000-1500 or the sub $1k stuff (which is where I'd be comfortable) is kinda sketchy. Most are in questionable areas or are just known for being shitholes. I would rather not have to worry about my neighbors stealing shit out of my car. And they are usually super old and run down inside (I lived in pheasant and would tolerate something like that)

We'd rather not have roomates and I don't think we're crazy about living downtown (especially with two dogs). I think I'd almost prefer to rent a house but that would be in the $1200 to $1500 range as well.

This all brings me back to, in my mind, thinking I'd be better off looking to buy a house or townhouse and pay a mortgage that would probably be close to that anyways. And then sell or possibly rent it out in a few years.

So how short of a time period would make it not worth buying? Living there for two years? Three? Or would we have to stay longer to make it worth while. I'm not familiar with how difficult it would be to buy another house while paying for/selling your current one.

I know everyone is pretty split on homeownership in the first place so just wanted to get some different views on it.

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[Apoc]

I'm pretty sure your question was answered when you posted about this in another thread.

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[Sully]

So then you're saying be comfortable paying the same for rent as a mortgage?

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[HAULN-SS]

I never had any IKEA furniture, but I will say the first furniture I bought myself is Ashley furniture living room set. It's mirofiber, dark colors, and has lasted for 10 years. I guess I can't complain. I have several custom pieces that I had made from a family friend who makes furniture - it's fairly cheap, extremely well made, but you have to stain/finish it yourself.

I just bought a new house, got out of WV finally. Went from 2100 to 2500 SF. I sold my dining room furniture and am on the look for new dining room stuff.

I have a ~$7000 bedroom suite that I got "open box/new" for about $900 because my uncle works for a furniture showcase that essentially trades furniture for rent money. If no one in the expo center wants it, he gets to offer it to friends/family. I have him on the lookout for dining room stuff, and outdoor furniture (which is also extremely expensive)

[Apoc]

So then you're saying be comfortable paying the same for rent as a mortgage?

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Who do you want to pay to fix things? You or a landlord? That'll answer your question.

[HAULN-SS]

Does anyone know anything about smart-home shit? For my specific example - in the new house, the switches are wired to the absolute dumbest receptacle in each room - i.e. the TV and all components are on a switch, because that's the only outlet on the wall that makes the most sense for where the TV goes. I want to somehow turn on lights in other parts of the room without hitting a switch on the wall, and without having to walk across the room in the dark to turn on a lamp. Phone apps? motion sensors? any ideas?

Separately - for rooms that have a switched lamp but need multiple lights on - is there anything where if one light comes on, it will tell the others to come on? I'm talking IoT lightbulbs here