Furnishing a house from scratch....eek

[feesh]

We currently live overseas and are moving back to the U.K. early next year. We are about to complete on a house, and we are coming back at Christmas to furnish it.

We need to pretty much furnish it from scratch as we aren’t shipping anything back from here.

I have very expensive taste and don’t like to buy cheap, but I do like a bargain!

However, I can’t afford to furnish a whole house with my current standards, for example our gorgeous bed is a Hypnos bed and I love it, but it’s 11 years old and there’s no point bringing it back with us. But to buy similar would cost thousands and when we have a whole house to do, that’s just not feasible.

I’m kind of sick of IKEA stuff, but it’s so hard to beat for design and price.

Where else should we be looking? I know about Homebrands in Cambridgeshire and will be definitely paying it a visit.

Has anyone got any other tips? We need to furnish three kids’ bedrooms (which actually, I don’t mind doing IKEA for) plus ours and also a kitchen, dining room and lounge. The biggest outlays will be the sofas and our bed, I guess. Plus washing machine and tumble drier.

The previous owners had all oak furniture throughout and it was so lovely, but I’m not sure we can afford that (and they aren’t interested in selling any of it - we have already asked).

Oak furniture land have seconds stores, i got sofas and a tv unit for £500, there is nothing wrong with the sofas and a small chip on the back of the tv unit, they sell pretty much everything. Ikea is the obvious choice for kids rooms and kitchen ware, the one in Reading is next to a Dunelm if you want nicer curtains and bedding. Goodluck with your move!

John Lewis - we got our lovely sofa there
Habitat - the actual shops closed down sadly but we bought some Habitat stuff from Homebase, this was a while ago though (otherwise I think online is still an option)
Made.com

We bought our bed and bedroom furniture from Warren Evans but unfortunately they have closed down.

PS You can probably get the appliances in the post-Christmas sales, I just decide what I want based on online reviews (eg which etc) and then search for the best price. We've just ordered a new cooker from Curry's as we get a discount (via a workplace discount scheme).

If you end up spending a lot at John Lewis it's worth getting a partnership card as they give you points which you convert to vouchers.

I love Cotswold Co and they do have sales now and then. Feels good quality and comes ready assembled.

Facebook market place, ebay (local collection) and gumtree are your friends along with furniture charity shops.

All of the above will be full of perfectly good furniture at very reasonable prices especially older items as people struggle to even give them away due to changes in tastes/fashions.

Just set up search alerts for items you are looking for and be prepared to collect and you'll probably be able to furnish your whole home for a heck of a lot less than you thought.

I will probably offend a lot of people but I recently visited the Made.com store and was a bit disappointed. Some of the items which had looked lovely in the online photos seemed a bit cheap and nasty. Didn’t buy anything so have no idea of the quality.

Facebook marketplace, second hand stores, and auctions- you will get better quality items for lots less than buying new. I got a lovely almost new leather 3 seater sofa with not a mark on it for delivered for £100 from Facebook.

Fezzig
I'm not offended, that's interesting. I've never bought anything from Made.com or visited a showroom (none near me) so I only mentioned it because I like the look of the stuff on their website

In my limitex experience, furnishing a house in high quality stuff takes a long time. I'd just either use what you do have or can get from friends/IKEA/marketplace and spend a few years prioritising furniture over other spends and get habitat and John Lewis stuff over time. Feels lovely to have earned it and spent time on it too. You can get used to the space and work out what would work best. I bought a John Lewis bookcase when I first moved into my house and put it up straight away. About a year later I realised that was probably the best place for a bit of artwork I inherited and I moved the bookcase but it does really look right where it now is. I should have waited! Haha

John Lewis Clearance usually starts on line on Boxing Day, and in store whenever they reopen.

Ask your mates, get on freecycle. If you're in London check out Lofty's Furniture which has ex display and returned furniture.

Try your local antique shops and second hand yards. Some are expensive but I went to one recently that was amazing and quite cheap. I'd have loved to refurnish my whole house with stuff from there.

Fab ideas, thank you! What’s the quality of Oak Furnitureland like?

I’ll definitely set up some eBay alerts, good idea.

Oak furniture land isn't bad.

I would go for a mixture of second hand, IKEA and start buying the occasional thing that I'd want to keep long term eg sofa, bed.

it’s 11 years old and there’s no point bringing it back with us

Why? Bringing a good quality bed back will be cheaper than buying new. And 11 years isn't ancient for a decent bed.

You've had good recommendations, but I'd start by thinking hard about what would be worth bringing back. The haulage cost may not be that high.

Try an auction, you can get furniture bargains.

Do it slowly, Feesh. If you do it all at once, you can make mistakes.
So, sofas, beds, kitchen stuff, white goods.
We bought the spare bed, slept in it for a bit, then bought our bed.
Had the most god-awful sofas because they were buy one, get one free, grand total of 300 then worked out what we actually wanted, waited for the sale, then sold on the ones we'd been using for 150.

It's been very expensive. The first credit card bill was horrific.

Have you got anyone who can accept deliveries nearby? There are sales after Xmas usually- but our sofas were on 6 weeks delivery. Bed took a month. You may struggle to get what you want if you are only here for a week, over all the Xmas bank holidays.

I think you are coming from the ME? Its bliddy freezing. I'd put warm clothes, and coats, hats, gloves on the Xmas list too - or you'll come back in Feb and the shops will be full of summer clothes!!!!

Good Luck!

Make use of black Friday soon for your electrical appliances. Would you be interested in buying on 0% APR deals from the likes of oak furniture land, DFS, Sterling etc? I tend to class these places as mid range. The stuff isn't cheap but then also not really expensive and usually lasts ages.

You could probably get nice sofas on 0% APR over 4 years, the same with living room furniture, bedroom furniture too. The kids can be ikea or argos stuff as you know what kids are like. You could decide a monthly limit to pay out then go shopping

@feesh personally I think oak furniture land is expensive for the quality.

Just to add, if you're starting from scratch don't forget you'll need stuff like plates, cutlery, duvets/covers, curtains and poles. If you've got someone over here who can store stuff I'd be keeping my eye on the pre Christmas sales!

Thank you folks, very helpful. I think I’d better tell my Mum to clear her shed out 😆

St Neots has an auction house which has regular furniture sales there is also an Emmaus nr Cambridge somewhere a friend frequents it.

Personally I would Ikea the kids rooms, get white goods online or from John Lewis for guarantee (although not now so good on customer service) then for the rest I would prob invest in a decent bed but everything else second hand with a plan on replacing over time.

You might also speak to the people you are buying from and see if any of theirs is available for a price if you like it and it doesn't fit in their new home etc.

To be honest second hand furniture is often a complete bargain in terms of quality - you could always get some pieces painted to modernise them. Although i cringed the other day at a before and after picture showing the most gorgeous burr walnut desk now painted a lovely shade of blue ....

ebay is fab. I've had all kinds of very expensive brands half price on there. Fill in the bedroom bits with IKEA and just replace when you can afford it. That's what I do.

Moving into a furnished house for say six months might give you time to sorted without it being a massive stress. Not sure if that's doable but might be worth looking into.

If you love your bed and it's not horrifically expensive, bring it back with you! I still miss the hypnos bed I had that I had to give away because it wouldn't fit up the stairs in my current house!

Also keep an eye our for house clearance sales. You can typically get a bargain on them.

I currently have a long 6 foot clothes rail in my bedroom off ebay which is fine to hang things on while I save for the nice fitted wardrobe that I want.
Doing things bit by bit