Furniture brands advice please

[Winterflower84]

We are going to move into our new house before Christmas. As first-time-buyers we don't have any experience with furniture brands as we have always lived in rented furnished houses. Would you please share your experiences with furniture brands that you never regretted having invested in. We need a living room set, a bedroom set, a dining room set. Many thanks x

I'm not sure about getting 'sets' but Ikea is very popular with ftb. The cheaper end isn't always sturdy but the more expensive stuff tends to be pretty good quality and still cheap. Sofas, tables, chairs and bookcases are great from there.

Do you have a budget in mind?

Thanks for your reply. I'd say around £5-6000 for a dining table and 4-6 chairs, a sofa and 1-2 armchairs, master bedroom's bed. Have only started my research so not even sure if it's realistic to get good quality stuff for this kind of budget.

I'd say on that budget, decent quality for that list is definitely possible. If you looked at the more expensive end of what Ikea has, it would be perfectly fine quality, and very practical.

However - as it's what everyone does, there is a risk that your home will end up looking like everyone else's does too.

Some other options to consider:

Our sofa is from www.nabru.co.uk and I love it. We picked it because we wanted a big sofa but have access issues to our first floor lounge, and we could guarantee this would fit. The fact they they are a complete bargain was a bonus and actually I am very, very happy with it. They do a huge range of sizes and armchairs too.

And our dining table is from here: www.diningtableandbenches.co.uk/
It's gorgeous, made from reclaimed timber and comes with benches (which are practical for seating a crowd without taking up much space) and costs less than many table + chairs combos from Ikea to boot.

You could get sofa, arm chairs, table and benches from those two places with change from £1500

Have you thought of buying good quality second hand?

As well as the lower cost it also means things can look more individual.

Our old flat was pretty much totally ikea and it looked a bit like one of their room sets. When we moved house I was determined not to do that again!

We bought a new bed and matress online, and then second hand sofas, dining tables and chairs, sideboards etc from ebay. We hired a van for a week and would trundle round collecting things we had bought when the sellers were around for pick up and kept them in the van till the end of the week when we moved.

We have 2 tan leather sofas in the living room that look gorgeous and lots of people comment on them. One cost us £38 on ebay and when we collected it the guy gave us the receipt as it was still under 2 year guarantee, he had paid £1100.0 from m&s a year ago but was redecorating!!The other one was laura ashley, we paid £190 cash, would have been £££ in the shop and looks like new. Our dining table & chairs ex habitat and look like new, £80 job lot.

Of course what you don't save is time as you have to look through huge numbers of truly awful listings selling stained moldering crap that look like father jacks armchair, but if you have the time to devote to it you can get lovely things.

With the budget, I’d go top end Ikea for the mattress, dining table and sofa.
Second hand stuff and antiques can be fab.
Depending on your style, there are a few shops that do sturdy stuff on a mid range budget, eg Maison du Monde, West Elm,

sent to early. For modern stuff, Dwell has some ok stuff. Possibly Oka in the sales for more grown up, excellent quality stuff.

And TK Max can can have good stuff but it’s same as clothes - it might take a few trips to find something.

Look st Ercol

Thanks everyone for your replies.
I would like to create a modern, stylish, comfortable home with as few furniture pieces as possible. For a dining table I like the ones with a glass top but not sure if I'll end-up with a high-maintenance kitchen-diner which is not practical with a 2,5yo toddler (the maintenance of a new electric hob is already going to be a headache I know).

Ercol, new or old is great

We bought the Ercol at John Lewis dining table and chairs it is very nice, Next also do an Ercol at Next Dining range, they were slightly cheaper than the Ercol in Furniture Village, but if you are near Princes Risborough the Ercol Factory shop is there and has some bargains.

Also John Lewis, if stuff is in stock, which it usually appears to be, deliver within about a week, whereas we are having to wait 6 weeks fo furniture from M&S and some places can take up to 10-12 weeks to deliver, Next seem to have some very long delivery windows