I'm not the kind of person that goes out and spends a fortune on fancy furniture or homewares.
I AM the kind of person that loves looking through pictures in magazines of beautifully decorated homes.
Since I moved out of home 7 years ago we haven't added much to our collection of furniture. And by that I mean we haven't bought more than a couple of things brand new.
We have added a dining room set (free), new bed frame (free) single beds for the older kids (free) chest of drawers (second hand) tv unit (second hand from Good Sammy's) coffee table (free) second washing machine for work clothes (second hand) computer desk (free) toy storage unit (second hand) computer chair (free) bookcase (second hand) chest of drawers (second hand and repainted) even the cot all three kids have shared was second hand (been through 4 kids before us) and we stripped it back and restained it.
There is very little that we buy brand new. Our lounge suite and white goods are the exception-that was all brand new (well sort of, the freezers came from Rick Hart Seconds).
And that suits us fine.
But every now and then I get the urge to splash out a little and set up our house. Sometimes I wish everything matched perfectly or was in perfect condition.
Most of the time that feeling passes and I am content with what I have.
Sometimes there is a need for something new. When Kaitlyn's chest of drawers fell apart and she needed new ones, but we found some on a local buy and sell page and repainted them ourselves.
Living where we do now in the Pilbara we don't want to be buying lots of brand new things. It's so dusty up here we would prefer to wait.
Today I've started my spring cleaning and along with the spring cleaning came the realisation that the tv unit we have was one we picked up from the Good Sammy's way too long ago. Our old one broke and we needed something to keep us going for a little while until we decided on a 'proper' one for our house. 6 months tops we would keep it. 5 years later I've given up and thrown it out today. In those 5 years we had broken 3 out of 4 glass panes and the leg on one side was broken but we kept it patched up and it suited us fine.
This morning I saw a new tv unit for sale on a local buy and sell page and decided it was time to chuck out the old one. So in came my new (second hand) $50 tv unit.
And then just because hubby has been asking for so long I bit the bullet, jumped on Ikea's website and looked up some better toy storage systems. I'm waiting to hear back on a shipping quote for a new bookcase and storage unit. Wow! 3 'new' things in one day?! Unheard of!!
After this big splurge I would say it will be awhile until we spend any more money on household goods but I will admit I'm quite excited to have something brand new that will 'match' some of our other furniture.
While in Karratha (our closest city) last week it was also time to buy new sheet sets, the kids old ones had no elastic left and were looking worse for wear. So I ducked into kmart and grabbed a couple more cheap sheet sets and even upgraded our tired old quilt cover $70 total for 4 sheets sets, quilt cover and a new sheet set for our bed too. New sheets, quilt cover and a few new furniture pieces. Wow! It has been a big week!!
What about you guys? Are you buddy interior decorators or Scrooge's with your money? Do you spend up big on fancy household furniture? Decorate your house with fancy homewares and change your decorative pieces with each season?
Or are you more like me? Grab as much as you can second hand, keep it until it's too far gone to save anymore and then upgrade to a new second hand piece?
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