Living room table set... [I don't have thousands of dollars]

Ever go shopping for furniture?

Does depression tend to take over?

It's not always that you can't afford what you want... It's that you shouldn't have to pay that price!


I have made peace with the price of a sofa or a sectional. Makes sense. But when a matching love seat or chair are almost the same as the one sofa, you really start questioning the whole idea.

Here's what I learned working in furniture retail;
The prices are close because the cost is mainly the structure of the piece.
If you think about it, a chair, love seat, and a sofa, all have the same amount of arms.... There's your cost.

I'm not condoning buying the most expensive furniture out there. I mean, if you want to, by all means. However, I still take the frugal approach.


Here's my frugal tips for furniture... this feels like a dejavu.... anyway;

1. Tables, dining chairs.... basically anything [wood] should be bought second hand. You can clean wood, you can re-stain, and you can fix a lot of scratches in wood. - and if you decide on metal, it can usually be repainted to look new.
2. Sofas and lounge chairs (including mattresses) should all be bought new. Seriously, suck it up here. I say this for your health. Bed bugs, semen, drool.... seriously, gross. Granted, if you can get some second hand things from friends, and you know their cleanliness and [habits] you could go second hand. 
3. Matresses should always be new if you own them. You can take a friend's for a guest bedroom (because its the same as a hotel), but that's about as far as I recommend going.

I have a designer problem. I want my furniture a specific way, and I generally can't find "my way" in used furniture (and sometimes not even in new furniture!).

So, I create. I look at some of these coffee tables done DIY for under $150!....... What? That doesn't call for an exclamation mark.

I mean, I know that $150 is much cheaper than most coffee tables out there... but, can't you do any better? 

Well I can!

I have a plan to do living room tables next... probably one piece at a time, starting with the coffee table.

I can see you thinking a coffee table is easy... but throw some drawers in there. 

And specifically drawers

We want storage without having to sacrifice our drinks...

Drawers are annoying, but they don't have to be that daunting. I am planning to find cheaper boxes, maybe crates or wood drawer dividers, and simply attach slides and a nice drawer face to them.

BAM

Simple.

That is my cheap, and lazy idea. Don't you just love it? 

Will post our progress.... Christmas decorations next!