To want to buy new furniture?

[Randomlettersljgd]

I am in the process of buying a new build house.

The house is smaller (both in terms of room sizes and number of rooms) compared to where we currently live.

Our current house is currently furnished with a complete medley of furniture. Over the years friends and family have given us furniture when they’ve moved into new places.

The items we have been given are excellent quality, but have come from bigger properties and dominate the space, and we are currently cramped where we are due to ill fitting non matching furniture.

Now my AIBU I want to furnish the new house with new correct size coordinating furniture but my husband thinks this is a waste of money as we have plenty of perfectly good serviceable furniture?

We are not flush with cash, but can afford to do so at middle of the road - so not the high end pieces we currently have.

AIBU to sell the furniture we have and replace with cheaper items but those that fit and have been chosen for the space they are going in to?

This is tricky! I think the right sized furniture is very important but usually I’d rather have better quality over new. Unfortunately, I’m the kind of person that if I don’t do something when I move, it never happens so I get stuck with the old stuff (and would be banging my knees for years to come) so I’d be tempted to compromise on the quality 😕 a friend of mine did something fabulous- when she bought her first place she only moved with things that were perfect - it took a while but eventually she had gorgeous, timeless, excellent quality furniture which she still has two decades, two kids and a much bigger home later. At the time she only had herself to consider so was happy to live with less but still had a home that functioned well and looked good. (Initial strategy was to focus on good storage/ built in storage so the house was never cluttered with her things...) good luck! I hope you manage to figure this out.

The doing nothing approach is my default and how I’ve ended up where I am now, hence why I’m like new house new opportunity.

The problem is the furniture size.

For example currently in our lounge we have a two seater and 3 seater sofa, footstool and coffee table, no other furniture. There is very little room around the furniture because the sofas are very big.

Our new lounge is 5’ x 3’ smaller than our current lounge!

DH says but there’s nothing wrong with the sofas in terms of condition and they are comfortable.

This I do not disagree with, but I can see us climbing over one sofa to get into the other one.

I would like a sofa and two chairs and a coffee table that are size appropriate.

And that’s the scenario for every room.

Why don’t you get rid of half of it and see how that works?

Make him sit on the least convenient sofa with all the climbing and see how long he thinks you don't need new furniture.

Because unfortunately that would leave us without enough items.

For example take the lounge situation - if I got rid of the 2 seater and footstool and kept coffee table and 3 seater, we would not have enough seating places.

Or keep sofas and get rid of table and footstool we would have no where to put anything such as mug of tea other than on the floor.

When we moved we left money over for decorating and furnishing the house and it has made such a difference. The furniture fits the rooms and meets our needs and look right together. If it’s at all possible I think it’s worth adding a few thousand on to your moving budget to do this (I appreciate not everyone can). My house does appear to be sponsored by Ikea though so I’m not talking about expensive furniture.

I really want to try and get him on board before moving it all in rather than retrospectively.

Curious that’s what I’m hoping to do - unfortunately dh is saying that it is such a waste of money

Would he go mad if you really insisted?

I completely get where you're coming from and I would want the same as you.

Try to persuade him to sell the current furniture and use the money for new stuff. It doesn't have to be high-end to be attractive. As long as you both like it - that's what matters.

We had to do this when we moved. Well the downstairs furniture anyway.

It was worth it, because going from a bigger (ex LA) to a smaller (new build with more rooms but less space) is quite a shock and takes a bit of getting used to. Limiting already limited space is difficult and becomes a pain in the arse having to maneuver (so?) yourself around a room over time.

Can you keep the sofa that fits best and then buy new chairs that coordinate?

In fairness to DH if I really insisted he would probably give in, but before I really insist I wanted to see if I was being unreasonable and/or if there was an alternative thinking that I hadn’t thought of.

I do like the idea of having the necessities and then build on that rather than all on day one.

Flissfloss not easily as the two seater is so big that two other seats would be squeezed in and I’d have to compromise, so DH would be unhappy that money is being spent and id be unhappy that it’s not quite what I want. So both parties lose this way.