Oh GRM Wise Ones, I Have a Question - House Decorating

I know, I know, let SWMBO do it. Well, I need to prepare. Long story short, getting married next year, then buying a house after a few months in her condo. We will need to decorate. For now, let's assume a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house and a 4 car garage (I have to have some fun too!).

What is a good estimate to budget for furnishing each room of the house. We have some furniture to start off with so it's not going to be completely from scratch, but for this exercise, let's assume from scratch. For the garage, I've been paying attention to a lot of the build threads here.

Thanks!

In reply to CGLockRacer:

Let's see, a budget for house decorating.

That would be all the money your soon to be wife can pry away from your.

As a newly wed, that just might be most of the money you have.

On a serious note, my sister just decorated a house from scratch, for a Airbnb rental. Total spent, from scratch including all dishes, towels, linens, the works, was about $25k. It was all good quality stuff and that can add up in a hurry.

Edit, that house was a 1 bedroom condo in downtown Charlotte, so not a large place. For a 4 bedroom house I bet you could spend a lot more if you aren't careful.

be prepared, when you buy a house everyone in your family will have furniture they are dying to give you. because they don't want it anymore.

how cheap are you? i'm sitting in a recliner i traded a few hours of work for. coffee table and 2 other chairs in the room came out of the trash, father in law gave me another, tv stand was made by my dad years ago, and my record cabinet was found in a barn. we bought the couch for $90 at a church resale store. so we've got $90 in the living room furniture.

do not cheap out on the bed(mattress anyway). get yourself a good mattress. you can cheap out on a guest bed. i think in our whole house we bought our bed, the kid's cribs, a futon mattress(frame was free), the couch, and a $15 dresser from the habitat for humanity store that i turned into a changing table/dresser for the baby. everything else was the curbside furniture store or given to us by friends/family.

oh yeah, the TV. i got it on sale. chances are you've already got one. i had a 42" when we got married, but having a 28 foot long living room made it small, so i put that in the bedroom and got a 55" for the living room. because sports.

You can make all the furniture you'll ever need out of pallets and closed cell foam.

It adds up quick. Figure 10K in furniture if you go new or nearly new and you don't have anything. You will have a good 2500 sq. ft to fill by the sounds of it.

The little stuff adds up too. We actually used our own photos for the different art in the house. We use it as a reminder of all of the different trips we have taken. Looking forward to the a couple of new additions from the next round of trips.

You all aren't GRM enough. My 1500 sq. ft. house has about $1500 of furniture in it. Sure, it took 2 years of garage saleing to get to this point, but it looks great and everything is real wood. Start with the bare essentials, take every single thing you can get from family and friends, then gradually trade up as you go along.

Learn how to use sandpaper and varnish, too.

Yup, use places like Home Goods, TJ Max, Ross, etc. and abuse Craigslist and Garage Sale-ing for good deals and work your way up to it.

For rooms with specific uses, like hobby rooms and the like, IKEA isn't a bad solution for drawers and tables, etc. Check out IKEAHacks.com for ideas on how to modify bits to suit your needs.

Seriously, who "decorates a house" all at once?

Years ago when I moved in with my ex we had enough stuff for a 500 sq ft apartment. When we moved up to an 1,100 sq ft rental our stuff looked lost at first but within a year it was full. Repeat to 2,000 sq ft starter home and 4,000 sq ft McMansion.

At no point did I buy more than three pieces of furniture at a time. It's an organic process, don't force or rush it.

i have a 2k sq foot house, my living room has 2 couches and 2 recliners. total furniture investment is the 600 we paid for the king size bed and 250 a peice for my twins beds. everything else is family or friends cast offs!

One more thing, family run estate sales are your friend. Not put on by estate sale company, they want top dollar, family just doesn't want the stuff. I have one piece of fine art in my house not counting my 1977 bally pinball machine. I have a real signed Dali over the fireplace that i bought at an estate sale of a doctor that travelled the world and had collected art and artifacts from everywhere. House was like a museum tucked in a middle class neighborhood.

i did a whole 1 bdr. apartment, furniture (living room, bedroom, whole shebang), dishes, towels, etc... using an ikea, target, and corelle-ware outlet store for about $2k. 5 years later all of the plastic cups are leaking, and anything from ikea made of particle board is reverting to saw-dust form, but hey, it worked!

My tip is if you're going to go with cheap ikea furniture, splurge a little bit to get the stuff made from solid pine. It's not that much more expensive than the particle board, but the pine chairs we got there are 100% good as new, while the particle board dressers are collapsing under the weight of clothes. My other big tip is don't buy garbage or you'll be the proud owner of rapidly decomposing furniture in 5 years, so maybe steer clear of Ikea.

Antique furniture generally isn't worth crap now. Not mid-century, that stuff is hot right now. 1920's and older is pretty much worthless, except for some truly special pieces. It can be a good bargain if it works with your decor.

Also at estate sales look for vintage tools for man cave decor. I have an assortment of old saws, lathes, planers and handles from my grandfather, they were destined for the rubbish bin before I took them. Together with some vintage tin signs and license plates it establishes the look of the basement. You can take some scans of vintage posters or digital files and have them screened onto canvas for wall art as well. I know these items aren't furniture, but you can end up spending a lot on decor that doesn't serve a functional purpose. $15 at an estate sale can yield a 5 gallon bucket full of high quality vintage patina tools.

Tom,

I never said I paid 10K. My office I think I have about $2K into it but that's including all of the electronics. (2 24" monitors, Printer, full docking setup, and a 42" TV) The rest is all Stuff I got from an office surplus store (Desk and really nice office chair) All of the decorations are either prints I picked up from a family friend for work done around his mom's house, pictures I took and really liked, and autographed racing memorabilia from the different races I've worked.

I second the estate sales comments. They can be really invaluable for getting great stuff cheap.

Tom Suddard wrote: You all aren't GRM enough. My 1500 sq. ft. house has about $1500 of furniture in it. Sure, it took 2 years of garage saleing to get to this point, but it looks great and everything is real wood. Start with the bare essentials, take every single thing you can get from family and friends, then gradually trade up as you go along. Learn how to use sandpaper and varnish, too.

I agree with this 100% ,buy it cheap, if it's ugly or doesn't match paint it. It will last a heck of a lot longer than some mdf crap.

All of my furniture is sourced from estate sales and hand-me-downs. Will probably be keeping about 1/2 of it indefinitely.

I wouldn't be buying new for most things. Just my thoughts.

Yep, we yard-saled Tom's house, and it's very cute. Dining room set was $225 (table, six chairs, lighted hutch), and that was one of the bigger-ticket items.

We also have a cabin we bought 10 years ago, and we yard- and estate-saled to furnish it, too. Only thing we bought new was the living-room furniture and a couple mattresses, but we did all that for under $1500 (the couch, loveseat and chair came from a scratch-and-dent furniture store, and the mattresses came from a place here in Holly Hill that builds their own. I've heard the memory-foam jobs on the interwebs are pretty good, too). I think we figured we had less than $4K in the place when we were done.

Both places ended up very cute, and it was fun to let serendipity dictate our "look."

Also, don't forget to shop your current home for stuff that might be superfluous there, but could really make a contribution to the new place. One of the biggest pieces in Tommy's house is Paul Suddard's old work bench. It's scarred, industrial, and stands out in a very good way against a nice floor and clean walls. Don't be afraid to use pieces you like, even if they don't "go". Matchy-matchy is gross.

Margie

I would add, start with the bedroom and work your way out. If you discover she likes oak and doilies while you prefer black leather and chrome; no need to go further.

Her new place will look nice too.

Thanks for all the comments. I will have to start persuading her to go look at used but better quality stuff. I've got time though, which is why I'm asking now! Keep the suggestions coming!

A house isnt a home without one of those posters from Spencers with all the guitar chords or the one of John Belushi in the college sweatshirt.

What gets you is the soft goods. You can plan the couch and TV, but the throw pillows and area rug sneak up on you. New mattress? New mattress pad, sheets and pillow. Nee hand. Towels for the kitchen. Another bathroom so new towels there. How many windows? Curtains or blinds? How about appliances? Good god.
When we bought our cottage a while ago it was fully furnished, but I spent $800 in one go just to get the soft goods needed to move the kids and I in.
If I had to ballpark things, I would budget $500 over furniture for each extra room you have now. Go from a two bed/one bath to a four bed two bath, add whatever your furniture costs are +$1500. Keep in mind that a new house will continue to ask for money for quite a while, not to mention the demands that a garage space puts on the wallet.
Houses are expensive.

Hint. The less space you have in your house, the less $ you will spend on furniture, cleaning, heating, cooling, etc. Don't buy a ton of space unless you need it.

DON'T get caught up in the panic of needing to furnish it all at once. The faster you need it done, the more you will spend.

Learn to love consignment shops.

Other than our master bedroom set (gift) and baby room stuff (gift) pretty much everything else was used stuff or new stuff on mega sale.

Insider's tip: There's a show on HG TV called "flip or flop" (or something equally stupid) where they "repurpose" stuff they buy at yard sales and try to sell it. The pain of having to watch the show will be offset if the future Mrs. CGlock takes an interest in refurnishing/restoring/repurposing. Its WAAAAAAY cheaper than buying new, and the "old stuff" is way cooler and more durable. Its also something for her to do while you work on racecars, so win, win, win.

EDIT: Knew the name didn't sound right, its: "Flea Market Flip". All other post content is accurate.

In reply to kazoospec:

But there is at least one HGTV, possibly more real estate shows with flip in the name.

mazdeuce wrote: You can plan the couch and TV, but the throw pillows and area rug sneak up on you.

GAAAA I HATE PILLOWS. If I had it my way, I'd have my pillow for my head, and that is it. We don't have a couch--just an easy chair with ottoman, recliner, and loveseat. If we had a couch, I'd want ONE throw pillow--to be used for wifey's head when she takes a nap. I nap on the recliner. Also pointless are extra pillows on the bed. I'll allow a pillow for between the knee's--that makes sense. But a pillow for decoration is stupid.