Moving into first home- what do you recommend

[Hijabihouse3]

We will be soon moving into our first house inshallah (god willing) from having lived with parents and therefore having little/no clue what we might need to start up. It's a little 3 bed with a garden, are there things we must do/buy or should do/buy?

So far all we own is our double bed

You an get things like Henrys second-hand, to get started. ebay can be useful. You can get cheap second-hand crockery etc from charity shops and upgrade later, once you have worked out what style/quantity you really want and saved up for it. My basic cutlery is still some that some friends of my parents who had given up running a B&B gave me 30+ years ago! Our sofa is one we bought from a charity shop for our last house when we were selling- a small one to make the room look bigger than our futon did. IIRC it was about 30 quid. We liked it so much we brought it here, it turns out to fit perfectly and looks great, and it's staying!

Hide a front door key in the garden (mine's in a little plastic chewing gum tub). If you ever lose your key (it happens) you'll be be able to get in without any hassle.

EBay and charity shops can be great for well-made secondhand curtains; I've also bought picture frames, vases, rugs, lampshades and top quality bed-linen (pure cotton and real linen) from charity shops. As previous posters have said, antique/junk shops often have nice real wood furniture at a fraction of the price of modern plastic-coated chipboard stuff. There are also architectural salvage yards for fancy old doors etc, though these can sometimes be expensive.