Why wouldn't you just take the furniture with you when you move in 5 yrs?

What does it cost to rent furniture? A lot less than the loss if you buy and then sell it after 5 years? Wouldn't you want to keep some of the furniture, regardless of where you move?

While forums like this often give the opposite impression, most people buy furniture and make it work in each house they live in, rather than starting over each time.

Furniture renting is quite expensive in the US; don't know about Canada, but here it's a very bad deal for stuff for your own use. The rental biz is mostly for people who can't afford to pay cash and want new furniture. It's usually pretty junky stuff at an inflated price and you will wind up paying for it anyway when the super cheap sofa falls apart in three years, for instance. Some landlords do it because they can charge more rent if the place gets new furniture every tenant.

You would be much better off hitting thrift/junk/antique stores. You might find something you like and want to keep. If you don't it will be a whole big bunch cheaper than renting, and the quality better, too.

Even if you are planning to leave the country or something where you wouldn't take your furniture, you are better off buying good secondhand pieces that you could resell. Long-term rental furniture is always purely junk.

At the moment you can buy excellent quality used wood-finish furniture for almost nothing, due to the current prejudice against "brown" furniture.

It does not make financial sense to rent furniture for five years. In Denver you can rent a sofa and love seat for $35 per week. After five years you will have spent over $9,000. You could buy the set for less than $1,000.

Craigslist, used furniture stores and IKEA would all be better bets than renting, IMO.

Ikea

Are you actually going to live in this house? If so, buy some furniture and make it a home, not part of your investment portfolio.

I have moved many times over the years, and I never left my furniture behind. In fact, the decision to buy or not was often made on whether our best pieces would work in the new house.

Rental furniture is garbage. Do not go that route no matter what.

Thank you for you feedback! We will be living in the house, IKEA furniture is too small for this home, we need bigger bulkier furniture for the size of the home. I'm also wondering if I should hire a de orator to help me decorate although I know they are costly at about 150.00 - 200 an hour but they are able to get pieces that are from stores only they have access too. What do u all think of hiring a decorator?

Post here and you will save a lot of money! Give us the floor plan and a few photos.

Decorators are hit and miss. Pros on this forum might weigh in and help you as well.

I think you are overwhelmed by how much furniture and the scale of the furniture you will need to fill up this home.

Will you explain the reason why you don't want to keep the furniture you buy for this house? I feel like it is influencing all your decisions about decorating this house and if we know the reason, it may help us give you better advice.

Two other thoughts. Are you trying to get the whole house done right away? And, many Ikea pieces are modular . You can make them bigger than the display which may make the scale better for your home.

It depends on your area, but where I am, Craigslist is a treasure trove.

I have a friend that used to manage a well known furniture rental store for years..she than left and became manager of another well known rental store. I've had lots of conversations with this woman about the stores policies. Rarely is anything NEW when it's rented oh, they tell you it's new, but they scrub, refinish, ect and pass it off as new. 80% of the people renting this stuff don't pay their bill so the stuff is picked up cleaned up and rented over and over again as new. A sofa that might sale at Big Lots for 499.00 (see the cheesy quality) will cost you around 3, 000 after you make your 2 years of weekly payments, but of course than you will own it, because the rental stores are a rent to own. In the end you will have paid a HUGE amount of money to rent all that furniture, which will be trashed within a couple years...very poor quality with high price tags.

Dress your home as if its your home, which it will be for 5 years.

I'm not sure I'm understanding your goals here. If you are trying to fill the house in a temporary inexpensive way, I don't think a decorator is a good strategy any more than rental furniture is.

If you are rethinking and want to buy lasting pieces that you are likely to be able to reuse in a different house, then a decorator may make sense.

I have lived in 11 apartments and houses as an adult. I find that not everything can be reused in new spaces. Smaller pieces are more likely to find a spot in a new home, in my experience. Bigger pieces are less likely to have dimensions that work, in my experience.

If your goal remains temporary inexpensive furniture, then I still think you are best off using craigslist, secondhand stores and IKEA for the bulk of your furnishings. You can take what works with you when you move and sell or give away the rest without much loss. If you don't have the time for that because of a busy job or if you want more lasting pieces, then it might be worth considering a decorator.

Are you moving overseas in 5 years like HK or something?

Your best bet to get decent furniture that you won't lose too much money on is to go used, I think. Maybe a high end consignment furniture store.

http://www.carriagehouseconsign.com/team

Do you not have any furniture where you are now? I am not sure why one would get a decorator, buy all new furniture, and then leave it behind in five years. That would seem counterintuitive for an "investment" property.

You might contact MINT Interiors to get an estimate of their services. The owners also own REVAMP, a staging company, so they are familiar with ways to furnish a whole house quickly. I have no direct experience with either company, but I've read about them in design magazines.

In the higher end neighborhoods of Ca such as Bev Hills, Pacific Palasades, Holmby Hills, etc, furniture is usually part of the home sale. I've never heard of it being a common practice anywhere else. I wouldn't think five year old furniture would be so worn out you couldn't take it with you.

If you won't be able to, or don't want to, take the furniture with you when you move again in 5 years, I would second the suggestion of buying second hand furniture. You might even be able to resell the furniture later to re-coup some of your costs.

I would not pay up to $200 an hour for an interior decorator for furniture you don't plan to keep. The furniture they have access to that you don't is going to be expensive.

Many furniture consignment shops have furniture from model homes, and also light fixtures, lamps, accessories, bedding, etc. I purchased a sofa and loveseat over 10 years ago and the chenille fabric hasn't even worn. Imo, renting would be a big waste of $$$.

As others have said, renting would cost you more in the long-run. I lived in another city for just a year, and when I priced out renting, it was cheaper to buy many things than rent for a year - five years would make buying a no-brainer for just about everything. I'd also suggest looking at high-end consignment stores - you may find great options for the larger scale pieces you want at much less than the price of new.

I would go to consignment furniture places and BUY furniture -- they're like buying used cars -- the markdown has already been taken off! You may still sell for less but your $1000 sofa costing you $500 that you sell for $300 is still a lot less of your money over the long run (costing you $200 for those 5 years) than if you paid $1000 for it and sold it for $300.

I see another post by Flower Girl where she says she lives in Vancouver, Canada. She has another asking about a wooden bed frame, and one where she asks for shipping costs on an iron bed from the US. Don't know whether she plans to keep that furniture. :-)

Thank you everyone for all your feedback, I'm not gong to hire a decorator now but will look around for furniture , thanks!

Yes I've also posted a wood headboard photo asking about getting a frame wood and also what sort of side tables would go with the headboard

Shall we help you shop on Vancouver Craigslist?

Large sectional high end.

I am confused. You bought the house for an investment, but you will take a loss on the sale? And it is your primary residence? Why are you not renting this property if you know there will be a loss…..

You should not be asking houzz what to do for decor; you should be talking to your accountant.

This surely is not a design dilemma.

I think she means that she will sell the furniture for a loss, not the house.

Yeah, ppl basically giving decent stuff away on CL and etc.

Hi everyone, wow thank you for all your feedback! I'm new to houzze and didn't expect all the replies! Thank you so much. Too answer some of the questions, we will be in this house for about 5 years, yes we will be making money on this house, we live in a suburb of Vancouver and the market is very hot! I wasn't going to be taking all the furniture when we move because we will probably be buying a smaller home, this home we re in now is 3500 sq ft. With 2 storey ceilings and high ledges that need decorative accessories, it's a bit overwhelming to decorate this house downstairs and up, downstairs is an open concept with kitchen and greatroom, I m going to need some help! Craigslist here in Vancouver is okay but I havnt really been on too long , I haven't really spent time looking for furniture we ve been selling some of my moms furniture items on Craig's list which just kills me because she s got high quality furniture that she paid thousands for 22 yrs. ago and now it's worth nothing, practically giving it away, such a shame ☹️Craigslist would be lots of work trying to find pieces, I guess I could try and thank you nosoccermom that would help me too, greatly appreciated ! Thank you everyone, I will be posting pictures of my rooms shortly! Thank you, thank you!!!!

If anyone in the lower mainland of the Vancouver area knows of any furniture stores that are discounted let me know, I've been to liquidation furniture in Burnaby which is great and I might buy a bed from there for one of my rooms, any other suggestions would be appreciated!

Locate quality furniture consignment stores -- I'm sure there are several in your area. It's a great way to buy and sell higher end furniture at reasonable prices. Might not be as cheap as Craig's List but much easier and more reliable. Also hit up estate sales and antiques stores. Good luck!

If you dont need 3500 sf and its temporary - just block off and/or dont use some of the space. No law says there HAS TO be accessories on the high ledges (if I lived there it would become a cat loft - problem solved LOL) Why not get the smaller scale furniture that you love and can take with you - I would think there ways of creatively grouping smaller scale furniture/furnishings within a larger space - and vice versa - sometimes the more beefier furniture (eg arts & crafts ) can look good in a smaller space too.

I guess Im just challenging some of the "shoulds" I'm hearing in your posts. Obviously, you will do what you need to do, I just kinow for myself Id have a hard time being enthusiastic about collecting stuff I didnt really like - just for no other reason than it's "big" or that it seems the house SHOULD have it.

When we needed new furniture but were renting and didn't want to spend a lot of money to buy furniture that fit the rental we bought a nice used leather couch and loveseat. That worked well, I just kept my eye on craigslist until I saw something I liked. We just bought and we're still using it for now, but will definitely want to buy something that fits the house better when we have a chance. With leather you can buy dye that will change it's color, so if you wanted to you could buy different colors and dye them yourself to match (if you were so inclined).

You could also buy a big comfy modern couch (do you have kids? Between my kids and DH they can tear down a couch in 5 years no problem) and then buy high quality antique furniture and reupholster it for additional furnishings. It would be more likely to hold or gain value.

Here are some pics of our guest room that I want to decorate first , I'm having a dilemma with the two windows , the bed that u see in the pic is not staying, I wanted to buy a tufted headboard, I'm needing to put a queen size bed in this guest room, any suggestions on where I should position the bed?

Sorry the pictures are kind of dark, the wall you don't see has a closet so I can't put the headboard there

I'm thinking to put the headboard below the left window but over more so it doesn't cover the window up that way when you walk into the bedroom you see the nice headboard

It's hard to tell since we only see part of the room but it appears that a queen bed is going to take up a lot of floor space. Have you measured things out to see if it will fit without blocking closets or doors?

Yes I've measured it out and a queen size will fit , I'm gong to try and get a lower tufted headboard so it doesn't come up too high on the window

The wall in the photo with the pictures I was thinking to buy a rustic Annie Sloan painted with a white Color cabinet , lower cabinet with drawers, the headboard will be cream coloured , any other suggestions

This is our guest room and so we need to put a queen size bed in

It's hard to make suggestions without seeing the other half of the room but do you have room to angle the bed between the windows? Then I would think about putting curtain panels on the windows and hang the curtains on the smaller window a little wide to disguise the fact that the windows are uneven. My only concern is that the corner looks tight so you may not have room for curtain rods.

Relaxing Master Bedroom · More Info

Here is the other side of the room

Waiting for responses

Any suggestions?

Maybe you can start a new thread asking for help about decorating your guest room. I think many people were confused about your original question and when you didn't explain why you wanted to abandon the furniture, they lost interest in the post. You could also post in design dilemma, which is busier than this forum. Good luck!

[Design Dilemma[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/design-dilemmas-dsbr0-bd~t_28561)