Congratulations! After years of saving and months of looking, you’ve just been handed the keys to your new home. Like any new homeowner, you’re beyond excited to move into your new place and furnish each of the rooms with your own personal style.
However, before you donate all your current furniture and buy all new pieces, it’s a good idea to have a solid plan for furnishing your new home. After all, you just made what will likely be the biggest purchase of your life, so the last thing you want is to spend tons of money on furniture you don’t need.
With all of this in mind, the following step-by-step checklist will help you furnish your new home while not breaking the bank in the process.
Step 1: Decide What You Want to Keep
Unless you have unlimited funds at your disposal — and you likely don’t after plunking down a pretty penny on a down payment — you’ll want to have a rough estimate of what you can spend on new furniture. To do this, you’ll need to decide, piece by piece, what will stay and what will go.
Start by making an honest assessment of some of your most-used pieces of furniture, like your bed, couch and kitchen table. If you recently splurged on an amazing coffee table, then by all means keep it. But if you’ve been sleeping on the same mattress for a decade-plus — and the headboard is more rickety than it is beautiful — it’s probably time to replace it.
Step 2: Start in the Most Used Rooms of the House
While you might have an amazing idea for how you want your living room to look, the experts at HGTV suggest starting with the bedroom when furnishing a new home. After all, you’ll wind up spending at least a third of your life in this room, so it makes sense to focus your money and attention in this space.
Additionally, you’ll also hang out quite a bit in the living room and kitchen, so before you spring for that incredible dresser for the guest room, focus on making sure these other spaces are to your liking and comfort. In fact, unless you donated or tossed away all your furniture, try to live in your home for at least eight weeks or so before you buy anything new.
Once you’re in the house, you might discover the formal dining room you were so excited to outfit and furnish won’t be used nearly as much as the casual and sunny breakfast nook. With that in mind, focus on making that area the best it can be before focusing on the dining area.
Step 3: Measure Twice, Buy Once
Now that you’ve been in your new home for a while – and you have gone through your furniture, item by item, to determine what you’ll be keeping – it’s time to think about buying some new pieces.
But before you buy a humongous new sectional couch [or giant foam bag seat] for the family room, carefully measure the space where it will reside to determine what can actually fit. After all, the last thing you want is to pay big money for an incredible dining room table, only to find out it fills up the entire floor space, with no room for chairs or people.
Step 4: Resist the Urge to Be MatchyMatchy
If you’ve watched any TV home decorating shows, you’ve probably noticed how decorators love to make sure everything matches. While you might want to go with an overall color palette to tie the home together, you don’t necessarily have to buy matching furniture sets.
For instance, if you have a cozy reading space, this navy blue Aria sofa and loveseat from Jerome’s is a comfortable and affordable option that will give the room an urban style with a touch of mid-century modern. In the kitchen, however, you might prefer a contemporary look with a sleek looking kitchen table and chairs in an off-white tone.
Welcome to Your New Home!
You’ve worked long and hard to afford your new home. Now it’s time to be just as meticulous with the way you plan to furnish it. By being mindful of what you actually need, determining which rooms you use the most, and buying what you love as opposed to what matches, you can prioritize your new furniture shopping and eventually wind up with a home that both looks beautiful and is comfortable to live in.
All images from Zara Home Fall Winter decor and accessories collection – discover more.
