Are your rooms starting look old and tired? Have they lost the vavavoom they once had? Or are you just missing some crucial piece of furniture you need in order to be able to make the most of the room? Maybe you need a desk, a dinner table for the kitchen or something else entirely?
Unfortunately home improvement is rather expensive and especially when it comes to adding furniture to your home. These are highly expensive items that are also very large and difficult to transport. Because we can often ‘do without’ the furniture we want this then means that many of us will simply give up on having the furniture at all and will make do with what we have.
Well what I’m here to tell you now is that this needn’t be the case, and actually there are plenty of ways you can get new furniture that will do everything you need it to, and in some cases bring a more interesting look to your room as well; and not have to break the bank. Here are some cheap alternatives to buying from an expensive home store.
Freecycle
Freecycle is a website that is basically free ads where no one is asking for any money. It sounds too good to be true, but actually if you look on Freecycle you will often be able to simply turn up to someone’s home, have a look at their suit, and then take it completely for free. The reason this works is that actually furniture is very hard to sell, and lots of people as a result are willing to just give it away once they’ve tried rather than having to pay for disposal or try lifting it themselves. And some of this stuff is in perfectly good condition too.
Free Ads
The stage that people will want to go through prior to putting their furniture on Freecycle is to put it up on the free ads. Go and grab your local free ads or a paper with free ads in the back and you might find that there are several great deals here.
Online
The web also has many sites that do the same job as newspaper free ads. The best known of these is perhaps GumTree, but you can also benefit from just looking on eBay where furniture will go for surprisingly low costs. Look for collection only items though as postage and package on a sofa isn’t really worth it.
Auction
There are many auctions where you can pick up great cheap furniture. One of the best ways to do this is to find a liquidation auction. This is basically a bank auction where the bank is selling off the things they have repossessed from companies and individual that declared themselves bankrupt. Because the furniture has been seized before the person or company was looking to sell it, this then suggests that it was likely in somewhat good condition compared to what you might find on eBay.
Friends
It might even be worth just advertising on Facebook for what you want by asking friends and family if they have a spare bed/cot/table that they’d be willing to give away/sell for a tenner/swap for another table.
DIY
Or of course you can build your own. Now don’t be too put off at the thought of this – building your own furniture is not only a very cheap alternative to buying it ready made, but it also brings a great sense of pride and accomplishment and is a brilliant conversation opener.
Jamie Kirk is a blogger and home improvement expert. He has written many articles about decorating conservatories and other rooms within a budget.