Top tips for furnishing your property
Published on Tuesday 22 May 2012 17:41
You are buying a new home and to celebrate you have decided to refurnish throughout. It’s an expensive exercise of course so you may not be able to get everything at once and will therefore have to prioritise, make choices.
The advantage however is, you can start from the floor and work up, co-ordinating everything, installing chosen items more or less at leisure. Not for you the chaotic pile of furniture and crates needing to be unpacked, sorted and distributed. You can plan each room carefully, indulging your impeccable taste, satisfying your artistic flair so the home will eventually be a showcase, an exhibition of the essential you.
We must assume naturally that the decor will have been chosen and executed, walls, ceilings, woodwork, lighting and floors dressed, ready and waiting for the things that will turn this shell of a house into the home you have always dreamed of.
First consider the floors. Do you want carpets, tiles or polished wood? Wander round your local showrooms and pick up their ideas. If there is a home style exhibition on anywhere accessible to you, go and visit. Take notes and see if any of the ideas can be translated into your new space. Choose carefully, mistakes can be expensive. If you choose carpets, make sure they are suitable for the area they are destined for. The store salespeople will be happy to advise. If you choose tiles, make sure their glaze will be unaffected by grit trodden in from outside. If wood is your choice, ask yourself about maintenance. Will you have to polish every day? Will you have time?
When floors are settled upon, look to the window dressings, they can match, complement or contrast with floorings. Again you have choices, net curtains, heavily lined drapes complete with quilted linings, will you choose simple yet attractive blinds or a combination of the lot? Curtains may be bought ‘off the peg’, made-to-measure or as fabric lengths for making up at home. If you are short on time, get them made up, you can’t beat a really professional job.
With carpets and curtains in place, you are free to start choosing the ‘hard stuff’. Naturally you will want somewhere to sleep so perhaps a bed should be your first choice. Beds these days are high tech items. Whether they are water beds, electrically operated beds or traditional divans with interior sprung mattresses, they come in a huge selection of sizes, degrees of softness and colours. The only way to choose is to try them out in the showroom where you must put aside those feelings of embarrassment as you lie down, toss and turn and roll gently about. That bed will determine your state of mental and physical health, so get bouncing right away. A bed is too expensive an item to be bought blind!
With floorings, window dressings and the bed bought, the basics are in hand so time to start on the rest. Somewhere to eat means table and chairs. If funds are short, a table and stool set are a good bet to begin with. They will stack neatly away when the home is fully furnished but will provide that vital necessity to begin with. This will allow time and funds to be spent on somewhere comfortable to sit and relax. A lounge suite of some sort is a must. Be it a traditional three-piece suite or a combination of chairs and sofas of various sizes, it will provide the comfort essential for the end of the day relaxation because new home or not, life and work still go on and you will need somewhere at the end of a hard day, to sit and relax in front of the telly - high definition of course.
So you have the essentials, time enough to purchase the rest of the furniture you will require to make your home a place to be proud of. Whatever you do, remember to go for quality. You never get more than you pay for. Today’s best furniture purchases are really the antiques of tomorrow, so go for the very best you can afford. Mind you, the odd antique added to enhance the look of your modern pieces can be very effective but be careful what and where you buy. There is undoubtedly a lot of rubbish around.
With the furniture bought and in place you can add those final finishing touches such as the lamps, the shades, the cushions, that quilted bed spread you have always wanted, not to mention the odd picture (original if possible), lovely piece of porcelain, books for those shelves and bold items of brass in the fireplace.
Furnishing a new house is exciting, satisfying and fun. In fact as a life’s experience it is only rivalled buy the purchase of the house itself..
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http://www.selbytimes.co.uk/community/property-news/top-tips-for-furnishing-your-property-1-4572907
