Buying my first house...need furnishings, but were to buy?

Tim_Deegan

poppysarah wrote: »

Shop around. Think local not chains.
If you find the right sort of shop they might do a good deal if you buy more than one thing from them. Always worth asking.

As a general rule shops are far more expensive than on line sellers.

ginvzt

For wardrobes - check out Ikea. Have a look at Pax (?) series, and you can organise the inside as you wish with all the possible combinations. the Warrington Ikea would probably be not a too long drive.
Sofa - we got ours from CSL, and it is great. YOu can also have a look at Ikea ones, as they do leather ones as well. We wanted our sofa to have recliners, so Ikea was out at that time.
Beds - check mattressman, that is where we bought ours from, as well as mattress (saved over £100 from prices in the shops, we paid about £350 2.5years ago for spring/memory foam combination)

Jem8472

I wouold suggest looking at seconhand stuff for certian things, stuff like dining tabels display units things like that. Seconhand furniture is really cheap as people want new stuff.

A mate a work spent about £1100 on a table and 6 chairs. I got a table and 4 chairs made from proper wood (not MDF with veneer) needed a few screws here and there to stop it wobbling and the chairs needed recovering but I would guess the whole thing cost us about £50-£70.
I am often shocked by the price of new furniture espically as a lot of it is not solid wood and it mass produced, seems too expensive for what it is.

givememoney

I'd say stay away from Harvey's at all cost. Horrendous experience with them and we weren't the only ones.

We needed new sofa and after looking everywhere we got our old one recovered in leather by local shop....we are delighted with it.

reehsetin

We just got our first place a couple of months ago, my experience:
Bed - local shop was so much cheaper, compared to the chains selling the king size we liked for £500 we got ours for £250ish from a local store.
chest of drawers - nothing we liked in ikea seemed very expensive everywhere else so ended up buying some from argos (seem very cheaply built though no ideal)
Sofa - people say not to buy from DFS but they had exactly what we wanted for a decent price, using them for a few months now and they're great
Furnishings -
wilkinsons are really cheap and the stuff is decent we got curtains, bits for the kitchen, lightbulbs were very cheap
Next - suprisingly their home stuff is really good and a decent price, we got light fittings and cushions from there
Dunelm Mill - everyone suggested here but to be honest I don't think anything we bought we kept, the curtains seemed very old fashioned and expensive and cushions etc were cheaper from next or wilkinson

morg_monster

Hey we are moving into our new house on friday, hopefully!

this is what we are buying:

beds - not sure yet but we want to try out first, might wait until after christmas to see if we can save some money on our own bed, and just buy a cheaper guest bed to sleep on until then, we are not so fussed about top quality etc for that one.

sofas - we've ordered from M&S (the urbino range), they have a 30% off deal at the mo if you buy more than 1 piece of furniture. There's also quidco and I believe a 12.5% discount code doing the rounds which might also work. But not being delivered until Feb. We also liked some of the Next range.

Dining table and chairs - tons on ebay, going cheap. We got a heavy teak table with 4 chairs for £30, reckon its a few years old but still in good nick and exactly what we wanted (i do quite a lot of sewing so needed a good solid table for the machine).

Shelving, desk, bedside tables, etc - most of this stuff we will probably get second hand or from ikea, again ebay is great but you need to consider how you will pick it up (eg hire van etc)

wardrobe - Ikea Pax for our room! You can customise them really well and so make best possible use of the space. Our 150cm wide wardrobe is going to come in at about 300-350. Other rooms will be cheap and cheerful, or second hand.

Also you said you were sorted for electricals but other websites I have looked at are the comet clearance site for washers, dryers, fridges etc, and various "graded appliances" sites, do a google search, they are good for hoovers, irons, things like that.

We are lucky in that we have a lot of stuff from John Lewis which our friends and family kindly bought us for our wedding. our house is going to be an odd hodge podge of fancy new things that we couldn't afford ourselves, mixed with all the second hand ebay stuff!

ukmaggie45

If you decide to go down the second hand route for some of your furniture there's an Oxfam furniture shop on Smithdown Road. I think Rapid Hardware does some furniture too.

Good luck! Exciting times buying your first house! :beer:

Maggie

puddy

well i know people dont seem to rate them on here, but i love ikea. my first sofa 12 years ago was from ikea (delivered as had to be made), its still going strong, needs replacing now but will do for another year or so as i have just bought a new cover for it.

at the moment they are doing interest free credit on all sofas over a certain price. personally i think their stuff is good quality.

ritani

Hi Ditto,
Congratulations on your first home! What an exciting time. I have purchased twice from Sofa Sofa and am really happy with them. Don't be put off by the distance, i'm in Liverpool too and was a bit worried at first at not being able to see/try it out. They send you free fabric swatches and have a 21 day return policy.
Have you tried Home Bargains on the East Lancs? They usually have nice furniture at really good prices. I bought a dining table and chairs from there last year and it still looks like new. As others have said too you can't go wrong with Ikea.
Best of luck

pineapple

Is there a Freecycle network near you?
http://www.uk.freecycle.org/
Worth a look. Also I know of a large RSPCA shop which has some pretty good second hand furniture - so larger charity shops are also worth considering.