Hi all, I've just moved and as a result looking to buy some furniture however a bit lost with all the millions of companies that create very similar things. At the moment the priorities are a bedframe and a sofa, we kept some furniture and the flat has some inbuilt storage so other than those we're ok for now. Just wondering if there are any specific companies people have had good/bad experiences with, both new and 2nd hand as there are so many options. Looking for wooden and the lower end for new stuff but still just trying to see what genuinely good options there are vs looks good type thing. e.g. Popped into an oakfurnitureland the other day to have a look and saw some corner sofas for ~£1000 which is potentially doable for us, but then have seen others all the way down to less than £300 when looking at generic places on ebay and whatnot. Now I know the quality won't be the same, and in this case it was a smaller sofa I think, but are there specific things to look for to give an indicator of quality other than price?
Unless you want to replace it frequently the more big ticket items like a sofa I'd probably invest in even if that means buying it second hand, a sofa that retails at £1000 will last significantly longer than one that retails at £300. Structurally its going to degrade quite quickly, we had a small cheap £300 sofa in our last flat that we bought new and after a year it was bowing in the middle, just started to fall apart. By the end of its life it aged 10 years in under 2 years of use, we opted to bin it because it wasn't going to last. We inherited my parents 7 year old sofas at the time and they've done us another 3 years and look the day we got them... they cost approximately £1000+ new when they were first bought Maybe check out a local auction house? I've seen people take away solid oak furniture for literally a few quid... obviously the tiers may make that difficult when viewing but you can request a condition report from most places and if you buy a decent amount of goods then local delivery will get it to your door the same week (unless you have a big enough vehicle yourself) Granted its a time and place scenario but I've seen really nice stuff go week on week for little money
Gumtree has been very good to us, for beds sofas and the rest. Our current sofa (12 years old, £50 off Gumtree) is in far better condition than the one it replaced (6 years old, £300 from DFS). I understand it can be hard to discern quality but keep a look out and you can get prices you can't argue with?
Ikea do some nice solid wood bedframes too so it doesn't have to be flat pack fibreboard. Our two guestrooms are fully Ikea furnished and we get lots of nice comments and requests for where to get the beds from. The best bit is it didn't break the bank!
BHF furniture shops can be good for second hand ... it just depends what they've got in on the day ... the new stuff they do seems like the generic amazon stuff.
Cheers for the suggestions, we'd basically decided on either going for something half decent or hoping to pick up something 2nd hand, partner is going to wander round some charity shops today on her day off so hopefully find a couple of bits, and now she's open to sofa + pouffe(spelling??) instead of just a corner sofa places like gumtree are suddenly way more viable as well. We looked at IKEA and didn't see any beds we fancied, and our last sofa was from them and it wasn't bad but we thought we'd try to look elsewhere this time.
I work for the BHF, so I'm a wee bit biased, but we get a lot of folk kitting out a full flat with furniture and electrical appliances for less than the cost of a new suite from SCS/DFS etc.. Obviously, quality varies with budget, but we get a lot of repeat custom.
Yeah, this is a great shout. I used to live opposite a BHF furniture shop and I got some great furniture from them over the years. One time one of the guys working there even helped me carry a six-foot desk over the road and up a flight of stairs, in exchange for a slightly larger donation to the charity. I think they used to get a lot of ex-display furniture from the likes of IKEA, so it was essentially brand new and someone had already put it together. Plus it was a fraction of the price of new. Edit: forgot the most important thing - it's a fantastic charity!
If you're not 100% fixed on wood for a bed, I have a frame you can have if you can pick it up from Notts - not terribly far from Wolves. It'a a double, Laura Ashley "Willow" bed frame in ivory - so fairly innocuous and could match just about anything. Mattress too if you want, with little use, though that's somewhat less easy to collect.
Thanks for the offer but I've actually just moved to Aberdeen so a little far now, also got a king size mattress so wouldn't have worked out, but cheers anyway. OH just popped into BHF and there seemed to be a sofa or two that may be suitable so we'll both head in over the weekend and see. Sadly no king size bed frames so that'll have to wait a little longer.
In stark contrast to computer hardware, brands are a very reliable guide for quality, we've found. We got a G Plan sofa and later a Lazy Boy and both have been fantastic, holding up really well. I cringed at the prices at the time but in hindsight it was worth it.
