When it comes to furnishing and decorating your space, both brand-new and secondhand pieces offer positives and negatives. It is important that your home is filled with pieces that bring you joy and meet your needs. A good bargain on pre-owned furniture never hurt anyone, but there may be some exceptions to what you wish to buy used. Furnishing your living space can be a daunting task, so here are some tips for deciding to buy new or used.
Trends:
When decorating your home, new furniture and accessories make it easy to embrace the newest trends. However, trends have a way of coming full circle: the old always becomes desirable again with time. A quick browse through interior design websites and magazines shows that furniture looks very similar to that popular half a decade ago.
Convenience and Durability:
The retail market is shifting increasingly online through popular sites like Amazon, Wayfair, Overstock.com, and others. Many online furniture items are meant to be disposable, making them great for non-permanent living situations, a frequent mover, or someone who changes up their living space often. However, what brand-new items have in ease and accessibility, they lack in durability. Secondhand furniture has stood the test of time, proven their value, and will continue to do so for many years.
Sustainability:
Buying furniture secondhand prevents them from ending up in landfills and slows down the industries that drive deforestation. Newer big box furnishings can break in a few years and end up in a landfill, contributing to greenhouse emissions. When buying a secondhand item, a thorough sanding, a few coats of paint, or a great clean can quickly transform a raggedy piece into a piece of your dreams, while reducing waste and conserving some natural resources.
Peace of Mind:
Some things should always be bought new, such as mattresses and all its accoutrements. At the end of the day, if a new item is exactly what you were looking for and gives you peace of mind, then buy it! Still, secondhand items provide loads of style and high quality for a fraction of the cost.
Overall, houseware interior designers say you should always at least consider buying these items used: upholstered chairs, dressers, vanity mirrors, coffee tables, rugs, artwork, stools, dining chairs, and sofas.
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Article by Grace D'Egidio