to budget £10,000 to fully furnish a new house, top to bottom?

[legallyblond]

We are moving into a new 5 bed house. As we are keeping our (2 bed) flat and renting it out furnished, we will have virtually no furniture for the new house (a couple of bits are coming with us and we have a couple of hand-me-downs coming, but hardly anything).

The house needs decorating (but I hope we can do the bulk of it - just painting) and the garden needs completely replanting, but it does not need a new kitchen or bathrooms. No structural work is needed.

I have, I think, carefully planned and sourced literally everything we will need - bear in mind we need all 5 bedrooms to be functional as we are planning to rent a room out and also need rooms for guests.

Its looking like we will need to spend £10,000 on totally fitting out the house and garden (I think I have thought of everything, even down to extra towels etc!).

What do you think?

It seems a lot to me but then when I look at what some people seem to spend on single pieces of furniture etc (e.g. from looking in interiors magazines), it doesn't seem enough!

I am aiming to do things on the cheap (quite a bit of Argos and Ikea), but equally, I have some nice things in mind, like good antiques... it seems to me that getting the absolute cheapest of everything is a false economy if you don't like the stuff! And I just can't scrimp on bedding and crockery (they are my "things"!)

AIBU? Too much or too little?

Look at second hand for your table. We picked up a really gorgeous second hand kitchen farmhouse table for £300. It's worn and rustic looking, but has far more character than a new one. We just used the chairs we had left from our old table and mix and matched with one or two junk shop/charity shop finds...we get a lot of compliments on it. (ha, though maybe people are just being nice, not that I give a monkeys, I LOVE it!)

Also, chat about the fact that you are looking for decnt 2nd hand furniture to everyone you know. we got a gorgeous old heavy oak chest of drawers that just needed a sand down and restain for £40, something similar new would have cost us easily a few hundred. We also got a similar quality wardrobe for around a 10th of the price it would have cost for a new one. Similar price to ikea, but much, much better quality.

We were given sooo many things once people knew we were moving, loads of curtains, some too small, but it was much less to get them adjusted by a local woman than buying brand new....not all of them what we would have chosen to buy, but we have our whole lives to work through the house and change what we don't like,, the important thing is we can live here with all that we need.

Good luck!!

Elctrical Goods - Asda or Tesco (plus you'd get clubcard points)
Guest Bedrooms and Kids Bedrooms - IKEA the lot
Your Bedroom - where ever you fancy,it's your sanctuary so get the best
Living Room / Dining Room - get the best you can afford, as 'making do' with Argos will just result in you having to re-do it in a year or two
Get good carpets so they last
Blinds up everywhere (Ikea do fab horizontal slatted ones) then curtains can be added over the top as and when you see/can afford decent ones.
CUtlery/Crockery/Accessories - Wilkinsons is better than one would imagine!

Remember, this will be your home - you can't buy soul. Kit it out with necessities, with the view of adding character and life to it as you grow with it.

I quite like Argos. You can't simply say 'all Argos stuff is cheap tat that will soon fall apart' as they stock such a wide range of stuff. OK some of it is cheap tat, but not worse than anywhere else I'd say (eg Ikea), For example the dining table and chair sets they currently have range from £60 to £1,000 and come from a wide range of manufacturers. Even the cheap stuff is not all crap, you just have to evaluate stuff individually. They often have sales on and you could get a bargain. And if you get it home and find it is crap, you can always return it within the 2 weeks. A lot less hassle than a trip up the motorway to Ikea when you find a vital component of the flatpack is missing.

I'm still using a sold pine TV unit and matching bookcase and coffeetable I got nearly 15 years ago at Argos, and they still look nice and have survived several moves. Whereas when we moved last, the removal company said we could leave stuff inside chest of drawers, but not with my one Ikea chest of drawers, as they knew it would be too flimsy.

I would always choose Argos for small electricals too, and buy the replacment cover. This works for me as I am very hard on kettles and Argos keep replacing them for me when they pack up. I have not had to buy a kettle for several years now! Whereas I have vowed never to buy electrical stuff from Asda again, as every time I have done, the item has lasted less than 6 months.

I got similar at auction for 5 pounds = VAT at 15% back then

one of these lamps 7.50 = VAT same source as above

similar 17 quid size is the same as the 115 rug

I have had a few other lovely items from auction or second hand sales in the paper that are oak and will last for another 20 year - at least.

why pay large amounts of money when you can pick up what you want at a lot less if you look at the second hand market. Ok beds get new and sheets

but cutlery, plates - I have a whole dinner service i got for a few pounds and it came with five jugs all matching and pretty pattern.

I have just looked at the catalgue for the mornings sale and there are 5 dysons, one car, 5 rugs chests of draws in oak, tables and chairs and they will go mostly for a song.

It depends if you want pre loved and are prepared to search a few places for the furniture you want.

John Lewis have a budget range of bedroom furniture that you have to make up yourself but it is really well made and solid.

Maybe a good place to start would be to find out what cover you have on your household contents insurance - ours is one of those where you get a standard cover depending on number of bedrooms. In our case, a three bed house contents insurance with our insurers, give contents over of around £45,000. Admittedly, that is supposed to cover all contents, including things like books, clothes etc, but I would have thought that if you can really furnish a 5 bed house on £10,000, you would be doing very well!

Not read the entire thread but TK Maxx for bed linens, imo. So you won't actually be on 'cheap' items (have some amazing 400 thread count bed linens from there for the same price as the very cheapest value range Debenhams had on special offer after Christmas, for example) but will still save a lot of money.

Same thing with kitchen goods. TK Maxx!

I think the point with contents insurance, is that you are expected to price everything up, from new, and being able to replace expensive pieces with similar quality. However, when you have just moved house, most people are fairly skint, so, they make do and save up for the "just so" room by room. When you buy the house, are the vendors not leaving any carpets and curtains ? It's unusual to have to replace all at once. As so many others have said - Freegle/Freecycle, local papers, charity furniture shops, cards in shop windows etc. will give you loads of bargains.
I saw a prog called 'SuperScrimpers' the other day. They helped a couple (who had spent around £1000 a room doing all the other rooms in their house) decorate and furnish a room with a £50 budget .... they ended up with change!
So, as most poeple have said, it's a "how long is a piece of string' question - you could spend very, very little, or 5 x what you are suggesting. Just depends what you have.

the absolute best mattress you can buy costs 150

its called a bed in a roll mattress, but its a proper mattress and feels like you are sleeping on a cloud.

you can buy them from those bedding outlets

I've just totted it up, I've done a 3 bed semi over the last two years for about £1500. Including telly

eBay, gumtree, free cycle and skip diving.

The boys' beds are the best thing - hand made by a carpenter, drawers and cupboards in them, £50 each

I would always rather buy good second hand than shite new, and as my budget is shite level, second hand it is. Third hand, in the case of the sofa!

another vote for John Lewis Value here - I have a lovelt wooden double bed from them - £129 - solid as you like - really good value

Ikea are also brilliant - my kitchen table is from there - good value again and long lasting

I did my house for about the same (3bed) including flooring and curtains (next )

Kids beds - we have these solid wood inc slats for £130. Would highly recommend. I looked around all the bedshops and this is an excellent price. I expect them to last until the kids don't fit!