Good cheap furniture/homeware places

buzzyzoe

Hi all,

I'm in the process of buying my first place. I live at home at the moment, so will need to buy pretty much everything, from furniture down to cutlery.

I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations for cheap homeware and/or furniture places. I've had a good look around, so have the usual suspects (Ikea, Argos, Amazon, eBay) on my radar, plus a few others.

I don't drive, so can't use freecycle or anywhere that doesn't deliver, and I'm in the London area.

If anyone has any suggestions/favourites, I would love to hear them!

Thanks as always

martinsurrey

cheapest thing you coluld do would be to buy everything on ebay and arrange collection for the same day and hire a man in a van.

collection only is the way to go on ebay, as not a lot of people can be bothered, so bargins are easy.

(my last one was a 6ft long 2inch thick solid english oak rectory table, for £51, just needs a sand and a wax and its a £700+ table)

buzzyzoe

martinsurrey wrote: »

cheapest thing you coluld do would be to buy everything on ebay and arrange collection for the same day and hire a man in a van.

collection only is the way to go on ebay, as not a lot of people can be bothered, so bargins are easy.

(my last one was a 6ft long 2inch thick solid english oak rectory table, for £51, just needs a sand and a wax and its a £700+ table)

This is something I have considered, but the only problem then is that you're somewhat limited, as you have to buy everything within a week or so of each other to be able to arrange collection for the same time, so you're picking from quite a small selection. I wish I could drive!

martinsurrey

yup, it isnt ideal, but if you start looking for auctions that end 2-3 weeks before you move and email all the sellers, to ask if collection on XX date is okay, you know you'll be good.

plus London has a lot of collection only stuff fairly close together, so your chances are pretty good.

doing something like that wouldnt work in the wilds of Northumberland!

or you could always just go to John Lewis and spank £3k on a sofa, a table and 4 chairs and a coffee table...

buzzyzoe

martinsurrey wrote: »

yup, it isnt ideal, but if you start looking for auctions that end 2-3 weeks before you move and email all the sellers, to ask if collection on XX date is okay, you know you'll be good.

plus London has a lot of collection only stuff fairly close together, so your chances are pretty good.

doing something like that wouldnt work in the wilds of Northumberland!

or you could always just go to John Lewis and spank £3k on a sofa, a table and 4 chairs and a coffee table...

Agreed, there should be a fair bit of choice.

£3K is more than half of my budget for absolutely everything so think I'll be giving John Lewis a miss! Looks like it will be eBay for the expensive things and ikea for the basics then, with a bit of Amazon thrown in for electricals.

Relocationrelocation

Dunelm is brilliant for things like curtains, blinds, cushions, kitchen bits etc. Zipcar/zip van are also great for picking up bulkier items. We got an amazing sofa from ebay for just £99, virtually new, and collected in a van ourselves - fraction of the price of a new one. The bigger tesco, asda and sainsburys stores are also great for picking up bits for the house. Next at home also fab!

buzzyzoe

Relocationrelocation wrote: »

Dunelm is brilliant for things like curtains, blinds, cushions, kitchen bits etc. Zipcar/zip van are also great for picking up bulkier items. We got an amazing sofa from ebay for just £99, virtually new, and collected in a van ourselves - fraction of the price of a new one. The bigger tesco, asda and sainsburys stores are also great for picking up bits for the house. Next at home also fab!

That's fab, thanks. Might see if I can rope in my mum to do some driving, although she's nervous enough in a car, so not sure she'd be up for driving a van!

savemoney

Try Facebook in your area. They often fb pages that sell furniture and other things from individuals and shops and they often people plugging man in a van on fb pages too. In used one other week to take a washing machine to my daughters for £15 other side of town

penguingirl

Gumtree is also good. Also suss out any charity shops that do furniture- my brother's nearest one in London does local deliveries so worth asking. I second ebay, we sold our old ones for a fraction of the price we'd bought them for 18 months earlier and someone got a real bargain.

Register with a cashback site (topcashback or quidco- personally I prefer TCB) so you can get a few quid back on any purchases you do online. Rates tend to be particularly good for setting up contracts (TV, broadband, fuel).

buzzyzoe

Thanks all!

I've already got a cashback account (on advice from this site, yet again) so am looking forward to all the lovely cashback when I'm setting up Sky, broadband etc.

I will have a look at local FB pages and Gumtree, and have a scour of some charity shops as well.

tizerbelle

Congrats on getting your own place - enjoy it but don't think you have to get everything all at once. If you only have something to sit on and something to sleep on at first, you'll cope until the other stuff is sorted.

My first house for the first week all I had were 2 deck chairs and a bed - still have one of the chairs now.

Try any second hand furniture shops near by and talk to the owners - yes, talk to them - become a regular face and many of them will jump through hoops for your business.

I got 2 1950's wardrobes and a dressing table for £35 and that included 2 weeks storage and then delivery as well! Granted I had to go on a tour of the shop owners warehouse in the back garden, just built it and very proud and meet his wife and have a cuppa but it was well worth it. I also went back time and again for stuff like dining table, chairs, bookcases even vintage sofas etc. Always great prices and if I wanted something he didn't have, he'd keep an eye out for me until he found it.