How much of your furniture did you buy new?

[Imicola]

Random musings really, but I have somehow only just come to realise the literally the only furniture in our 3 bed house that we bought new were the main sofa, beds and cot. Everything else is a hodge podge of hand me downs and second hand, including jumble sale, gumtree, Facebook, antique shop with a few pretty decent things for free.

What about you? If you have second hand, where are your best pieces from?

I'd love to get a brand new extendable dining table in future, but the ones I liked were all over a grand so we stuck with our £20 jumble sale table. Pretty glad given our toddler likes to give it a good pounding with her fork on a regular basis!

Brand new are sofas, all beds, some bedroom furniture..lol.the rest is up cycled ( my partner loves a ‘project’!)....so that’s an ercol dining table and chair, a G Plan cabinet....some bedroom furniture and a coffe table

50/50
Bought vs Freecycle and eBay/ th market place.
We can afford new but I just don't think 1.5k is worth it for a table (ours is solid oak with 6 chairs and cost £50 from eBay.)
Our friends just spent 15k at neptune and I was like

My first tiny house was 100% ikea as it was dirt cheap and matched the white, ash wood look I wanted at the time.
My design aesthetic then moved to Next, again all brand new.
Ive since moved on to a more eclectic style, with a mix of inherited pieces and shop bought. It's made me realise how much better my home looks without the matchy matchy high street look (I did a Rita Konig interior course over lockdown) so cannot wait for the antique shops, auction houses etc to re open so I can get more character into my design.

Pretty much 100% IKEA. Sofas, our bed, drawers, dining table and chairs, bookcases etc are 10years old. Other bits added over time on house moves (6 houses in 3 countries).

Just about to move into a more permanent home (plan to remain for at least 10 years unless we win the lottery or similar). Will upgrade furniture gradually now we don't need stuff that can be flat packed if necessary.

Just our beds, and an armchair were bought new. Everything else is found on the street and upcycled (or not ), inherited, or a couple of things bought on eBay (dining table 99p!)

I do want to buy a new sofa soon though.

Mixture here.

First house was mostly free cycle which gradually got exchanged for ikea in places which in turn is gradually being replaced.

My dining table is new and my pride and joy but the chairs are old and I'm painting them.

I have inherited antique bits which I love.

My sofas were £20 on ebay.

My kids beds are mine and my sisters childhood beds because my mum got bunk beds for when mine stay over. The rest of their furniture is ikea because I have yet to find anything better for child or teen bedrooms than stuva and kallax.

All of it. But it is about 90% Ikea.

Also, don't knock the quality of Ikea. My parents have Ikea furniture that's over 30 years old.

Oh I just saw you want a dining table. Mine is extendable and perfect for our house and as I mentioned I got it for 99p on eBay. It's an IKEA one, so not high end, but it's nice and was nearly new when I got it.

Im an auctioneer and I love old wood so our house is a really eclectic mix!
We have new beds for us, guest room and the dc and a new sofa bed in the study. Everything else is at least second hand. Even though our bedroom furniture is modern, I bought it from auction at 1/5 of the price of the local oak dealers workshop. We've just replaced our 1920s dining suite as it was too shabby to be chic and that's been replaced with another second hand table. Our sofas were from a recently deceased family member's home; sideboards, desks and displays again were family pieces we've brought together. I've also bought lots of second hand Ercol/MCM to create a space that doesn't go with the rest of the house at all!

I love an eclectic/antiquarian look but am aware other people and friends may shudder at how no room looks like another here and prefer the Oak Furnitureland catalogue look. Each to their own.

One of the beds, a pair of bedside tables, a nest of tables and a desk 😂

MIL moves house/changes furniture quite a bit, I've just realised we have her sofa set, dining room table, bedside tables and a bed.

We also got a fantastic fireplace from eBay, originally from next due to someone changing regularly. We are quite thrifty and very lucky to have MIL.

All new. But it's our first home and we wanted everything to match.

I've got
Small sofa and chair (bought for a rented property no longer like them.
Dining chairs
All beds
Drawers in the nursery
A bookshelf
Two TV units

Everything else is at least second hand.

My bed and some bookcases from IKEA are the only things I've bought new. Everything else is either passed on from my parents or bought from charity shops.

I was surprised to realise most of it is new

I'm with you on the cost of dining tables. We bought our 8 seater solid wood extending table on Gumtree for £120. The prices of the new equivalent were shocking. I like that I don't have to stress too much if it gets knocked or marked.

We've also got a few 'upcycled' things, table made out of cable drum, old chest in the living room etc.

Zero. I have no new furniture at all.
During lockdown I replaced my old second hand sofas with “ new” second hand sofas. They were pristine leather really well looked after and completely free. Genuinely grateful for people that have greater wealth than me.
I do have a lovely antique French oak bed that I brought of an ex. It’s a weird size so needs a block of foam not a mattress. I’ve never got around to replacing the excellent block currently in it. It’s got to be 50 years old now which is a bit grim!

With our previous flat we basically loaded up a van with Ikea furniture when we moved in - we'd been renting a furnished flat and didn't really own any furniture. Moved to a listed house a year ago and are slowly buying pieces we really like - some antique pieces, some new ones, some made by craftspeople (bought a great monks bench from a furniture maker on etsy). Ebay is my new evening entertainment - I'm surprised how many good quality items we've found. It will probably be years before we have everything decorated and furnished, but I'm quite enjoying the process and don't want to buy any cheap 'placeholder furniture'.

My friend has recently purchased a new house and refused to have anything move from her old house and it must all be new stuff from next or similar. I remember wondering how she could afford it considering the new purchase but people do different things with their money. We over pay our mortgage significantly and will be paid off soon, she has a low payment over 30 years. Horses for courses and that.

The beds (except one), the sofas (eventually - we went through secondhand and hand-me-downs as well) and various storage units and shelves (including some DH made). We did have a new dining table for a few years.

The rest is from auctions, antique shops, small ads (in the days when those were a thing), inherited... It's a right old mish-mash but it works for us.

I used to get everything free off the street but slowly replaced it with what I wanted over the years and now it was all bought new or "seconds" from the stores (e.g. you can get decent habitat returned furniture a lot cheaper on ebay that's got a small flaw or whatever). there's nothing more satisfying than only having stuff you love around, even if it takes ages to get it together! And definitely shop around for the cheapest price and try to get it for less if you can.

I forgot to mention junk shops. My favourite chair was a junk shoo find, £15.

All second hand , freecycle type things apart from mattress- both bought new . One is ikea and it's great !

All upholstery and beds new, apart from ds1's stressless recliner set that we bought when he snapped the arms off an IKEA sofa by alway sitting on it sideways. We have 2 dining sets, both ebay/ gumtree bargains. Dh's desk is an ercol Windsor dressing table, off ebay - firs into his alcove perfectly. He stores all his work crap in a pine chest of drawers - also ebay - £25 orange pine but really solid. He's removed the naff rail off the back, stripped off the orange stain and put a much nicer antiqued finish on it. We also have a sideboard, who h I don't love as it's a rather garish cherry stain from the 90s but it's so practical.

One of my sofas, the beds and the chests of drawers were bought new. The rest was given to us or secondhand. Don’t think I would consider buying new again as there are so many secondhand bargains.

Beds and kids bedrooms are new (Ikea and argos).

I think everything else is charity shop or hand me downs. Sofa and arms chairs are hand me downs, tv unit and bookcase from a charity shop. Dining table from gum tree.

All of our furniture is brand new (when we first got a house we had hand me downs). Mostly Ikea etc. And now I need new bedroom furniture I’ve suddenly realised how outrageous that is. Because of home working we have to re configure the room so need a new Hemnes set of drawers. Theres so much on Facebook market place or ebay it seems a sin to buy new.