When we got our first apartment, I owned a breakfast room table and chairs, a dresser and nightstand, and a Larkin desk…all purchased used when I had my place alone…and all oak. I still have it all except the chairs have been replaced a couple of times. Everything else in our small apartment was hand me downs from relatives or friends. And we were so grateful to have it all. Little by little some of the hand me downs were passed on and replaced. But honestly, I don’t know what we would have done for furniture without that stuff.
Fast forward to our kids. This is funny. We asked both if there was anything in our home that they wanted. DS graciously declined everything….including everything left in his bedroom. DD, OTOH, wants my table and chairs, desk, and dresser with nightstand. I was shocked.
DS has furnished his new place very slowly, saving money to buy each piece before purchasing. He had a platform bed custom made a while ago. For this place, he likes the West Elm look, mixed with some MCM pieces. He has a nice tiered bookshelf, and just got a chaise/couch. This is all mixed in with things like lamps and a credenza that he purchased at a used furniture place. He has gotten his rugs from…maybe rugs.com. And nothing expensive. He figures he can change it out if he wants to at some point. Almost all of his art is done by local artists where he lives. I have to say, he has some nice pieces.
DD has mostly older donated furniture. They will replace things one at a time. First up will be a new sofa. She also has a couple of Ikea pieces leftover from a previous apartment. But she says they are done with Ikea. They want better quality now. And she does still want my stuff…which shocks me. But no room now. Her art is from around the world travels, and is very interesting too.
I will say…both are very very good at assembling Ikea and other furniture that needs assembly.
They do both agree that older furniture is of better quality. And DD has considered some painted older pieces at a place that does those near me.
My kids expect to abandon all their furniture if/when they move away from their current area, so no expensive pieces for them. They may feel differently when they turn 25.
D19 took some furniture from home from us for her rental house her senior year. Her next move was to another city and we concluded that paying to move that furniture was not worth it so she sold it to other college kids. She did pretty well on the sale. New apartment in another city from home we did a mattress in a box. Went thrifting and found a couple of pieces and she used the money from the college sale to get a few other pieces. She will be in said city for a total of 4 years.
This is not the time to buy nice stuff she can wait.
I’m mentioned before our first couch and love seat came from a very low budget local motel when they were remodeling. DH looked through all of the them and picked the cushions that were the least stained. And they sat under his parents’ carport for awhile to get rid of the smoky smell. Those was den furniture for our first 11 years or so. Our fancy living room furniture (our first house) came from a guy named peanut selling his stuff in the Walmart parking lot.
Our dining room table was nice! Second hand, and homemade but it looked like something you’d buy in the store. The guy knocked some $$$ off because we looked like a nice young couple.
Our bedroom furniture was H’s growing up. It became older S’. Our second bedroom had a super awesome to raise kids in This End Up daybed/trundle bed (with an extra slat so a toddler can’t fall out!) that my grandpa paid for as our wedding present. That will be the last thing I ever get rid of.
Older S took his new mattress, our sunroom table/chairs that we never used. He and GF refinished it. Looks great! We now have a Subway booth H got when they remodeled. We paid for 1/2 of a new bedroom set from a moderately priced place. And he took my in-laws’ TV stand. His roommate brought the other living room stuff. And now with GF they’ve slowly acquired their own new living room stuff. A few things were freebies.
My first apartment AND our house was furnished with hand-me-downs, many that my parents got from their parents! Nothing of significant value, but by now they are meaningful. Unfortunately, both children moved 2400 miles away, and have TINY spaces (that’s all that’s affordable in their area). DD would love some of the MidC hand-me-downs, but no space available, and very expensive to move and store.
I started my adult life in a one-bedroom apartment with the plastic milk crates I had used as bookshelves in my dorm room, a powder blue crushed velvet and chrome sofa with glass and chrome coffee table (both castoffs from a relative), and a 24-inch round drop-leaf unfinished pine table and two chairs that I stained myself. With my first paycheck, I bought a queen mattress that I put on the bedroom floor. It was months before I invested in a beautiful mahogany four-poster rice bed that we still have.
My dad gave me the best advice ever: Don’t waste your hard-earned money on that $300 brown-and-cream plaid sofa and loveseat set from Sears that will never die or you will be tied to that ugliness, especially when kids come along and you reason that you might as well keep the crap until they’re old enough not to spill milk and Cheerios all over it. Instead, buy fine furniture one piece at a time even if you have to sit/eat/sleep on the floor for a while. (And don’t have kids.) He was right. Before long, I had some lovely things, most of which either we have today or our son has.
When our son graduated from the academy and moved to GA, he took all of the very nice Ethan Allen furniture that came with/furnished the casita of our new house (bed/dresser/nightstands/desk/lamps/sofa couch) along with a Persian rug, set of china, bar ware, and everyday dishes that we could spare. The Christmas before graduation, we gifted him with everything he needed to start his kitchen (knives, food processor, manual pasta maker, Instant Pot, utensils, etc.). I gave him the same advice my dad gave me and he is following it. It’s better to acquire quality things slowly than to buy cheap things just to fill the empty spaces.
There is a lot of satisfaction in discovering your own style and furnishing your surroundings with things you love.
We started out with hand me downs, milk crates, and cardboard dressers. We slowly bought items when there were clearance sales and with wedding money.
We purposefully kept furniture from a second home we sold and items of my parents after they passed for our daughter. She bought fill in items from Ikea and antique stores/thrift shops.
I honestly cannot even remember where the furniture for my first apartment came from. I was sharing with several of my college friends and don’t recall what we used for couches, kitchen, etc.
When my lease was up, I moved up the street to a different apartment and my room did not have a closet (these were very old buildings on UES in Manhattan). I found a lovely antique armoire at a consignment store for $100 and used that for all my hanging clothes. I think I bought a dresser at the same place. I still have the armoire. I removed the rod and added a shelf across the middle, turning it into a desk where I could close the doors when not in use. I still have it in my living room with my iMac inside. The doors are closed when we have company - I have had several people compliment me on it.
The dresser I bought at the same time is now in my old room at my parents’ house that I grew up in.
I actually still have a small wooden bookcase that was in my childhood bedroom,. I have no idea where my parents got it but at some point I painted it white. I used it in my daughter’s’ bedroom until we redecorated for her during pandemic shut down. It’s now in our guest room. I have too much emotional attachment to get rid of it at this point!
We just put at the curb the microwave cart we bought at Big Lots 40+ years ago when we got married. It was still perfectly fine!
H and I started collecting and refinishing “antiques “ before we got married. Our house has always had a blend of these refinished pieces and some newer pieces. When I look back at some of the couches we chose, YIKES!
All 3 of our kids blend their home items. Some of our antiques. They love second hand shops for used furniture. Wayfair for reasonable furniture and rugs. FB Marketplace for some great finds - D1 and her fiancé just bought a pristine Crate and Barrel fancy futon/couch for $200 - 25% Of the cost of a new one.
My first home after my parent’s, was a house we bought when we got married. We furnished it with new inexpensive stuff from department stores (at the time Macys, A&S, and Sears).
My daughter’s first apartment was a very small studio. I got her nice bedroom furniture
from Crate & Barrel (bed, dresser and one nightstand) and she got herself a couple of stools from Wayfair. These few items literally filled the entire space.
We are not big on buying new furniture. There are only a few pieces we have bought. Many we have inherited, some has been given to us. We have some nice IKEA stuff so I don’t get the slagging off on IKEA. I appreciate that it is more sustainable than many furniture manufacturers and my IKEA bed is super comfortable.
We realized recently that we have never bought a sofa. I think we bought a futon once 30 years ago but all our sofas over the years have been gifted to us. I did buy a new futon mattress to use on the antique day bed that turned it into a sofa.
So far my kids much prefer to get furniture from the thrift store. They’ve found some cool stuff there.
I guess you could say our style is eclectic. I like it that way. Oh. I have made the occasional item too. Made a pretty nice storage ottoman that is very comfy for putting my feet up.
After college it was mostly hand me downs (including some very dodgy sofas we inherited from our crazy landlord). Eventually, I bought a pull out sofa that I had for 10 years. I slowly acquired a few nicer pieces over time. I enjoy occasionally refinishing/painting furniture so we’ve rescued some very solid things and given them new life. Unfortunately, furniture made today isn’t that solid - including expensive stuff from well known brands.
This made me laugh. I wonder if it’s the same one my parents got in the early 80s! My parents were big on new tech EXCEPT for microwaves. My mom - who hated to cook and did it at little as possible - liked the idea, but they were paranoid about microwaves being bad for you. They bought a very small one and that was their microwave until they moved out of the house around 2010.
But, when I came to work here in 1997, our office had the SAME one! And that remained our microwave until the guy who brought it in retired a few years ago! It still worked fine, but everyone who used it wanted a bigger, more normal one.
Ours was like a fake oak laminate or whatever with big fake brass roller wheels - thing was sturdy though and served a purpose for decades - and someone rescued it so it lives on!!
We had the same cart purchased in 1980 when we got married! I think we got rid of it when we moved into a home with an all white kitchen; there also was not a space for it, so the microwave lived on the counter.
My husband moved into “our” first apartment about 6 months before I did. He had a lawn chair and some weird thin roll up matress in the family room that someone gave him. And a TV.
I think his Dad bought him a desk (one of those ugly partical board computer ones) and he splurged on a water bed. Fancy.
By the time I moved in we collected some other hand-me-downs. We had an ugly floral couch, some end tables and a little dining room table and 2 chairs that someone donated. As we moved from place to place we gradually upgraded each piece though we tend to hold on to things way too long. My husband tends to feel what we have is good enough and isn’t much interested in upgrading stuff at this point. I would LOVE a new dining room set - even if it’s second hand - but I suspect we’ll be downsizing soon so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend much money now. The one we have now we agreed to take from some friends on my parents without seeing first years ago. My Mom insisted it was beautiful and it’s not.
My daughter just moved into her first apartment for grad school. We basically helped furnish it with Ikea or Ikea-like stuff. It’s cute and functional. We figure she now has the basics and when she and her boyfriend get jobs and move they can upgrade and/or add to what they have as they want.
FYI, those milk crates many of us used in our dorm rooms and first apartments…my H has an ebay business and they are HOT items - you wouldn’t believe the people that will pay a lot of shipping to get their hands on them!!! (don’t ask me how he manages to wrap and ship them but he does…)
I had at least a dozen of those milk crates in my basement and garage. The town did not want them and they were not recyclable. I ended up giving them to a local farm (they were very happy to take them).
