How to Save a Ton of Money on Furniture

When I was 21, I got my first post-college job, moved out of my parent’s house, and set out to add some furniture to my apartment. My aunt was getting rid of a couple of things, so I was able to get a couch, a picture, and a couple of lamps for free. Thanks, Aunt Marg!

I also headed out to Target and bought a $89 “entertainment center” which held my TV, stereo, and a few DVDs after it was assembled. Then, I made my big purchase, a $450 La-Z-Boy recliner!

I had pretty simple tastes back then or as my wife will tell me, absolutely no taste. Furniture was easy for me and it didn’t even drive my girlfriend, now wife, away!

However, now that I am a real adult with a house, 3 kids, and a beautiful wife who actually does have taste when it comes to furniture, I can’t just piece together furniture leftovers from family and tie the room together with a La-Z-Boy. Although our furniture is still comfortable instead of formal, it costs a little bit more that the old couch that my aunt was getting rid of.

Painting old furniture

One of the ways that I have gotten a lot of value from old furniture is by repainting it so that it looks newer. Typically, the furniture that was made 40+ years ago was built to a higher standard than today’s furniture is. However, my wife and I aren’t huge fans of the antique or Victorian look in our house, so we don’t really want to have older furniture without first doing something to it.

Now just so you know, I am hardly the expert when it comes to refinishing furniture. For instance, I brought a dresser that is shown in the picture above outside last summer and was beginning to sand it in the driveway. After being out there for about 20 minutes, my neighbor came over to talk with me about refinishing techniques. He has actually made a lot of the furniture for his own house and is very knowledgeable about this subject.

However, he mentioned that I would probably have 10-15 hours ahead of me in sanding before I even got to the stain. Then I could easily put 4+ coats of stain on the dresser before it would be finished.

Hmmm, I thought. I was planning on another 20 minutes of sanding before I quickly tossed two coats of paint on the dresser. While my neighbor thought that the project could take a solid week to do, I was planning to have the dresser done in 5 hours.

So I am definitely not an expert!

Although I am not an expert at repainting old furniture, I have been able to turn some old furniture that we had no use for into pieces that we use everyday.

Here’s what I do

My wife and I have found that one of the keys to repurposing old furniture is to get new hardware for it. Since my wife is the one with good taste, she usually picks out this hardware as well as a color for the furniture.

I will usually sand the furniture for a few minutes, clean it and fix any broken hardware, and then paint it. I have found that gloss paint works well for this because it hides imperfections and looks pretty good. After two coats, I am able to install the new hardware on the furniture and voila … I have a used piece of furniture that looks brand new.

Although the furniture isn’t quite as fancy as brand new furniture, I have found that we don’t mind the imperfections of the used furniture. It is cool that I can look at it and know that I had a hand in making it. I also am not afraid about this furniture getting a scrape on it like I probably would be with newer furniture.

Shopping for new furniture

One of the things that we try to do before shopping for new furniture is to try to find some older furniture that we can repaint. Garage sales, estate sales, and family members are typically a great place to look for older furniture. I usually look for furniture that is pretty heavy. Usually, that tells me that the furniture is made out of solid wood and it will last for a long time. (Can you see that I am not really an expert in this!)

If you do this, maybe you will be like my neighbor and spend a lot of time on the used furniture to make sure that it will look great. Or maybe you don’t want to spend too much time on this project, and will just throw a couple of coats of paint on the used furniture. Either way, you will probably end up with something functional and useful that you feel proud of for many years to come.

You will also save yourself around $1,000 for each piece of furniture that you decide to refinish. As we have found out, saving $1,000 in after tax money is like saving $1,500 in before tax money. And, even better, $1,000 will grow to just over $10,000 after 30 years of being invested at an 8% interest rate.

Besides saving money, you can also be satisfied that you helped to save a piece of furniture from the landfills and saved a tree from being cut down for a new piece of furniture.

All around, reusing older furniture is a win!


Have you had any success with repainting or refinishing older furniture? What are some techniques that you use to do this?

And, as always, thanks for reading!

~Nathan


Let’s keep living a great life … with the help of money. So what’s next?

But no matter what you decide to do, let’s leave the ordinary behind and take action today!

 

2 Comments

  • Erin

    I love used furniture! I think it’s way more fun to hunt around garage and estate sales for something you love than to look in a store and pay 10 times as much. Some of my favorite pieces of furniture are refinished old pieces. There’s history in them, and like you said they are good solid pieces of furniture, which is a lot harder to find today. And there’s something very satisfying about knowing you paid nothing or very little for things you need!

    • Life Before Budget

      Very true! Instead of paying thousands of dollars for something new, it´s much more fun to find something used, that is even better than the new piece of furniture.

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