Furnishing A New Home On The Cheap: My $50 Living Room

Ok, so I must first confess the title of this post is slightly off. All the furniture in this living room cost me $50 (max), but I am not counting the rebounder in that total (was $15 at a yard sale). It belongs in our family room and was out when this picture was taken because we’d been using it for therapy (which is also why the room is tidy with a freshly vacuumed floor…. nothing helps clutter patrol more than having therapists on a couple times in a week).

I realized my living room was a pretty decent microcosm of some of the main ways we’ve furnished our home, so I thought it might be fun to do a tour of the room and sharing how we got the furniture in it.

* The Couch ~ was $40 at a yard sale. They were asking $50, I offered $40. I got it specifically because I knew it would match our brick wall (one of the features we love most about this room). A Note About Yard Sales: Some people occasionally have the attitude that it is only luck that causes someone to find cool things at a yard sale. While I heartily agree that God has provided some major blessings for our family with yard sales, I also think there’s an unfair tendency to act as if you just fall into yard sale deals by accident. After we bought our home, we spent about six weeks hitting making yard saling a priority… I spent a huge chunk of two of my Saturdays, getting up earlier than I wanted to be up, so I could go to neighborhood yard sales. Yard sales can be fun, but we also went to some when we would have rather gone and done something else, because we knew we were in need of some things.

* The China Cabinet & Wooden Chairs ~ came from family. My husband’s family provided the china cabinet and my family the wooden chairs (it’s a set of four, originally belonging to my great-grandparents). Not everyone has such a strong, built-in support system, but if you are someone blessed with it: appreciate the things your family has to offer. The china cabinet is probably not THE china cabinet I would have chosen if cost and personal choice were the only things involved, but I also could not have purchased a cabinet with the good memories my husband has of this cabinet, either. It’s barely visible, but there’s also an end table beside the couch that came from Strider’s family. His dad used to work in mall shoe stores and this was one fo the display tables, decades ago.

* The ottomans ~ both have storage and lids that are tray/tables on the other side. They also came from different places. A friend at church was getting rid of several items in preparation for an out of state move; she sent an e-mail out offering them to the first responders. I requested the ottoman and a set of curtains (curtains are in the kitchen and will feature in a future post). A few weeks later, I found the smaller of the two at Bed, Bath & Beyond on clearance. BBB is one of the more expensive stores out there, but we were able to get this with some gift cards we still had from our wedding almost three years ago. If you’re not married yet and will be renting an apartment before buying a home, I *really* recommend taking a couple gift cards and just setting them aside until you’re ready for the home, if at all possible. We could have spent all our gift card money on small items like candles or dish towels, but I’m so glad we held on to some for bigger items like this stool!

* The wicker toy basket ~ came from a thrift shop. I luuuuuurrrve thrift shops.

* The globe book ends ~ were ones I purchased new at the five acre discount store several years ago. The books I bought at a library book sale several years ago. Confession: Deciding to put them there was not an aesthetic decision at first…. I was trying desperately to make room in my history book case and realized that if I moved this set of books to another room, I could have more space in the shelf. Happily, they match the living room. 🙂

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There are things I don’t like about this room: the drapes, for instance. They came with the house and I really hate their color. But right now they’re doing the job and I haven’t found what I want yet. And this room was a little easier to do in some ways because it is a smaller room and not the one where we have a lot of company hang out; that’s our family room. Family room tour can come next, though, if people want it. 🙂