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!

We are a mixture of 2nd hand, hand me downs from family or friends or IKEA.

Just inherited some lovely wing back chairs that are the green leather & Chesterfield style unfortunately DSis got the matching sofa so now in the market for a chesterfield sofa.

Two sofas. That's it.

Beds, bedroom furniture, TV unit, corner unit, kitchen table, armchair were all from new over the years.

I've never had a new sofa, the rug is second hand, kitchen sideboard came from DHs mum.

Thats about all we own. Everything except the boys beds and furniture was bought 20-odd years ago. The sofas get replaced with another facebay special about every 5 years i guess.

I think we'll still have the same stuff in another 20 years. No replacements unless broken.

Study chairs for DC, our bed yonks ago, and that's really it.

Rest are inherited and antique finds, all a big mix, really.

In my sitting room,the only thing which was new is the TV unit. In out bedrooms all beds were new but other than the bookshelves and desk in my son's room,its all second hand.

At first nothing! I had been married 10 years before I bought a sofa. I'm now getting divorced and most of dps and my furniture is salvaged from our respective marital homes- we are planning on buying new stuff at some point though!

I think.. 25% new. Our bed, now 23 years old, kitchen table 17 years old, some IKEA Kallax shelves and a futon for my eldest son's bed, probably 20 years old. The rest is from second hand shops, antique shops and facebook purchases. My favourite is a sofa that was being given away which I had recovered in some truly amazing fabric.

Literally nothing except for one small wardrobe, one set of tall DVD shelves and two slim bedside cabinets, all bought from IKEA because they had to fit really specific spaces and IKEA was the easiest option. Wardrobe and bedside cabinets are probably the worst quality and my least favourite things in the house. Everything else was either family furniture or bought second hand. I loathe chipboard stuff, and buying even good quality new furniture seems so wasteful when there is so much lovely second hand stuff in great condition out there.

All of it. Nothing from IKEA. Sofa is 15 years old now but still great condition. Coffee table 13 years old. Bed in my room 20 years old and has had 2 new mattresses.
Children's bed was made by someone to order and only 4 years old.

Will probably replace lounge furniture soon

When we got together we bought a new bed but everything else was secondhand and our sofa was loaned to us by our friends Mum.

We have a secondhand dining table, a really lovely ercol one from the 1960’s that MIL gave us as too big when she moved and DH grew up eating around that table. We also have a large chest, side table and footstool which have been in his family for well over a hundred years. I have two chairs of my Grandmothers, they are carefully packed away. I also bought secondhand a cabinet and wall hanging cabinet that I just really liked.

New - our mattress and one sofa (bought 20 odd years ago). I think every piece of furniture and all other items in the house, including curtains, blinds, kitchen stuff, bedding, etc is from family, bought at auction, charity shop, eBay, car boot or from Freecycle. We have a large, very old, six bedroom farmhouse, so there are lots of rooms.

Old furniture is beautifully made and cheap to buy. I just hate buying anything new, supporting big business and destroying the planet. Also, there is so much else to spend money on!

Most, if not all my furniture is 2nd hand. I managed to get 3 seater and 2 single recliner black leather sofas off FB for free I did recently buy both dcs new beds but I think they're literally the only thing new

Lots of it, as I moved past seperation and could not be bothered to drag out arguments about the furniture.

So I have brand new sofa, table, 2 dining room chairs, 2 beds, all white goods.

Some second hand/vintage stuff mixed in though - 2 dining chairs/a chaise that were reclaimed/reupholstered then bought by me. Vintage chest of drawers and 2 vintage armchairs.

My plan is to buy mostly reclaimed stuff from now on and really look after the stuff bought from new so it lasts.

Mostly second hand. With the exception of one sofa, kids beds and all mattresses.

I live in a Victorian house with high ceilings, big windows etc. A lot of modern furniture, mirrors etc is too small in scale and just gets lost in a room.

Whilst our house is large, our budget definitely isn't! So we go on ebay, gumtree and local antique (read junk) shops as they tend to have larger pieces of furniture or mirrors from house clearances which we can upscale.

We do have ikea bits and bobs, and stuff from next.

New sofa and bed, but the rest of my furniture is second hand. We’ve inherited quite a bit of antique furniture which suits our old house. I also love searching junk/antique markets for pieces.

Most but it was IKEA largely - so at the time chest of draws, two bedside cabinets cost a total of about £140 - living room was more. I didn’t have a dining table for over a year and it’s still one of those butterfly ones due to space. They cost a bomb! Some IKEA stuff has had to be replaced now but it served well.

Bought the sofa brand new and arm chair from Next - under a bit of pressure about appearance at the time. I mean 9 years later they’re solid and comfy and in good condition but I probably didn’t need to spend that much.

In hindsight I was a bit naive to the world of FB market and reselling furniture etc so kind of thought everything will have to be brand new. However my investing worked out well - a couple of replacements but the expensive items have held their own and survived a move.

I’m now much better at hunting down bargains and upcycling too!

Oh bed was also new I have to be honest I would happily buy a second hand bed frame / base but would always stick to new mattress if I could - just a physiological thing I’m sure.

Half and half here. 2 sets of sofas in different rooms are second hand (actually two of them are third hand!). Child's bed frame is second hand. Our previous bed frame was second hand. Our spare bed is my husband's old bed from his single days that his parents bought him.

Everything else like cabinets, bookcases and desks we've bought. We have no qualms buying second hand stuff if it's in good condition and what we want.

A complete mix, as I get older buying far less new and looking at vintage, antique and second hand.

Good quality new stuff is more expensive thank good quality second hand. If I’m buying something cheap it’s usually better quality to buy vintage/second hand than cheap b&q.

Bought a load of Victorian mahagony furniture recently from someone moving, paid a man and a van to move it. It was about£5k but beautiful veneer and solid wood. Lovely solid polished chest of drawers, beautiful polished extendable dining room table and chairs, 2 chandeliers, lovely old marble topped washstand, a grand sideboard and bedroom furniture.

I sold our old table that cost £2k new, lasted 10 years, but the veneer was coming away...

I’d never buy a new dining room table again. The choice of solid wood secondhand is so much better.

I probably should have added 2 things.

When we first bought, there was no IKEA or similar here. We actually went over the border to the nearest IKEA when we built an extension, 13 years ago, for a bunch of furniture for that.

And what we have bought has stood the test of time, even the cheap IKEA bits. Like the €13 desk we got for dd (top was size of an A3 sheeet of paper) in primary school that was trashed, disassembled and put in storage when she got a full sized one in secondary for her room, but reassembled for me to use when lockdown started. Worked perfectly fine for 6 months until IKEA reopened and I got a proper sized one for myself.

The only things we've got rid of were things like baby furniture, and a couple of things that no longer suited our style (white leather topped bar stools when we changed the room to dark grey), or that were second hand and we bought things we liked as we could. And pretty much everything has found a home within the family as other siblings on both sides got houses etc. Although I am about to put a laundry basket full of curtains in a skip when we get one for emptying the shed and other junk...lime green or 70's paisley pinks are apparently no use to anyone else anymore....but we were glad of them initially just to get privacy.

Nearly everything brand new is/was IKEA, plus quite a few secondhand IKEA items. Sofas were new. Treated ourselves to a new wooden frame bed a few years ago.

I can't see us ever walking into Oak Furniture Land or Next and ordering a full matching living room. If we need something the first place I look is eBay/Facebook then clearance/seconds places, then IKEA. But I try to choose solidly built items to last, in IKEA it's better to go for solid wood than chipboard.

About half. I'm in my 50s so had plenty of time to afford what we need.

But half's good isn't it. It means we aren't chucking out perfectly good tables & chairs for no good reason. My new stuff is the soft furnished, so sofas, easy chairs, mattresses etc that need to be replaced periodically for reasons of hygiene.

My large grey mirror and small corner unit (gumtree)
Dining table +chairs
3 nest tables bought them second hand.
But everything else was bought new

@Moomoolandmoomooland

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.

Same. And I love IKEA. My furniture is over 10 years old and have survived moving flats.

Yep nothing wrong with IKEA.

I’m surprised by the stuff I see for sale on Facebook that looks brand new, or sofas that are a year old, need gone today as new sofa arriving?.