Recession Cheap Furniture Can Be A Smart Buy

Just out of school and in your first apartment, you get a couple of choices in furnishings. You can take those hand-me-down pieces that Mom and Dad don’t want any more, with any strings that might be attached. Or, you can buy some cheap furniture to tide you over until you make CEO and can furnish in lavish style. Cheap furniture doesn’t have to be ugly furniture. It just doesn’t cost a great deal of money. You can find cheaper pieces of furniture in every furniture store. Why? Because they know that there is a market for products that might not have the style or the enduring quality of higher priced pieces, but that still provide a place to sit, sleep, etc.

One of my favorite fun ideas for decorating with cheap pieces of furniture is to buy plain, unfinished wooden chairs, chests and tables, and then you paint them. A couple cans of paint, a few stencils and you’ve got unique “art furniture” to fill your empty apartment and it won’t cost nearly as much as if you bought it already painted and decorated.

Another cheap furniture trick is the cover up. This means you buy really inexpensive tables or chairs, and then use fabric to hide them from sight. You still sit in the chairs and put your books or a lamp on the table. The great things is that no one buy you will know that underneath that bold plaid or pastel-laden chintz, is an inexpensive and plain piece of furniture.

Of course, you can do both. Go ahead and take that old sofa and recliner your dad loves and your mom has wanted to throw out for fifteen years. Then, add a few pieces of carefully chosen and artfully disguised cheap furniture to the mixture. You’ll create a look that doesn’t cost much but shows your own special style.