Level Up Your Living Room: A Secondhand Furniture Guide For the Broke and Discerning

[holli]

cross-posted to tumblr.

When I first began living on my own, I didn’t really have any furniture. I started with an IKEA bed and a hand-me-down dresser; from there, I added wobbly particle-board bookshelves and lumpy couches left behind by previous housemates. By the time I was getting ready to move into my current house, a year and a half ago, most of my furniture was, frankly, kind of crappy.

So I started scouring Craigslist, and checking the furniture section at the thrift store, and called in favors from a few friends who owned vans or SUVs. When I moved into my new place, I had ditched most of the old stuff and replaced it with better-made, better-looking vintage pieces, almost none of which cost more than $200 individually (and that was for a midcentury modern dining table with eight teak chairs). Since then, I’ve also swapped out most of my particle-board bookshelves for hardwood replacements. I still pick up nice pieces when I see them and the price is right— most recently, a glass-fronted cabinet ($25), a velvet settee ($300, which is more than I’d usually pay), and a coffee table/console/end table set ($100).


Actual furniture & art currently in my house.

There are a lot of reasons I prefer my current furnishings to the old ones. Well-made vintage pieces are sturdier, last longer, can better survive dis- and re-assembly, and (in my opinion, anyway) generally look nicer. I do still have a couple of Billy bookcases and a Lillesand bed, but I am also a human person under the age of 40 and living within 50 miles of an IKEA, so that’s kind of inevitable.

There’s one other good reason for buying vintage that gets overlooked. The furniture and other housewares I’ve bought secondhand will not lose value; in fact, should I ever resell them they will probably go for more than I paid. 

Because here’s the thing: if I hit a rough patch, or an unexpected medical bill, or other major unplanned expense, I am probably not going to have to resort to hocking my laptop or my few pieces of good jewelry. I can sell my 1930s enamel-topped breakfast table (bought from Craigslist for $85; would resell for $200 easily), or my 1920s spool cabinet (bought from an estate sale for $25, would fetch $250+ at an antique store), or a few of the thrifted paintings off my walls. They are all lovely things that I enjoy owning very much, but I would be fine without them and I would find equivalent replacements eventually.

So: let’s say you want to start divesting yourself of particle board. How should you start? What should you look for? How much should you be willing to pay?


Where to Find Good-Quality Vintage Furniture On the Cheap

• Thrift stores (find out if your local stores have discount days— all the Value Villages around here do 25% off on Mondays and Thursdays)
• Estate sales (check estatesales.net, which will email you a daily list of sales within driving range if you sign up)
• Craigslist (useful search terms: “vintage,” “solid wood,” “sturdy”)
• Yard sales (check listings on Craigslist; there are also several ‘yard sale mapper’ smartphone apps)
• Small local flea markets (NOT bigger, antiques-only markets, which will be expensive)

What Should You Be Looking For?

• Pieces made of solid wood (IMPORTANT: including the backing!)
• Pieces with hand-turned or hand-carved details
• Dovetail joints
• Drawers that pull in and out smoothly— same goes for rolltops on desks and drop leaves on tables
• Upholstery in good condition— no stains, rips, or pilling
• Veneers & inlay, if any, in good condition— no missing, broken, or warped pieces
• Pieces YOU LIKE— what is your personal taste?

What Should You Avoid?

• PARTICLE BOARD, especially if it is a piece that needs to be disassembled for transport— every time you take it apart, it will be harder to put back together
• Anything with unfixably wobbly, loose, or missing parts
• Anything missing hard-to-replace hardware or glass
• Anything that cannot stand flat on a level floor
• Seriously bad smells— a little mustiness is fine and usually airs out, but if the couch smells like cat pee now it will ALWAYS smell like cat pee

Questions to Ask Yourself

• Do I have a way of getting this home?
• If I don’t, will the extra cost of a Uhaul be worth it?
• Does this need any major work done to be usable? Do I have the time, skill, and energy to do that work? (This is where being a chronically underemployed Millenial can come in SUPER handy)
• Are there any easy fixes to the problems with it? (For instance, missing knobs or pulls— I highly recommend D. Lawless Hardware for vintage-style knobs and other hardware. Their prices are good enough that you can just buy a full set of new pulls if you can’t match the ones already in place.)
• Will it look good alongside the other furniture already in my house?
• Will I use it?
• Will this be a significant upgrade from a piece I already own?

Easy Fixes

• Wooden chairs with fabric seats can easily be recovered with fabric you like better.
• Desktops or tabletops with a lot of stains and scratches can be repainted (note: this is NOT an endorsement of slapping a coat of milk paint on a perfectly nice piece of furniture and calling it ‘shabby chic’. Repainting is for stuff that is unsightly or unusable without it.)
• As mentioned above, if a few knobs are missing, it is often easier to pull off the rest and replace the whole set
• Missing a vital bolt or screw? Bring one of the remaining ones with you to the hardware store to find a match.

What Should I Expect to Pay?

Obviously, this depends on your budget and patience level. I personally am an advocate for holding out until you find the exact right thing at the price you are willing to pay. As a general rule, I almost never spend more than $150 on any given piece of furniture, and $200 is generally my limit except in VERY special cases. Of the pieces pictured above, I spent $25 or less on everything but the couches and the dresser. Half-height hardwood bookcases (often with nice carved details) can frequently be had for $10-15.

Thrift stores are usually going to be your cheapest option, but they rarely allow haggling the way estate sales and Craigslist do. It also helps to go thrifting and check listings often— because I run a vintage business, I go thrifting at least weekly and check online listings a couple of times a week. When I am looking for a specific piece I will check Craigslist at least every other day, and will usually find what I want within a week or two.

Conducting the Search

If you can’t find the exact thing you want, a dirt-cheap stopgap solution can sometimes be acceptable. I still haven’t found the pre-1950 seven-drawer teacher’s desk I want at the price I want, so I bought a white-painted 5x3 solid wood table with nice turned legs for $50; it will be totally usable as a desk until I find something better, I can resell it for at least what I paid, and I might even end up liking it enough to keep it.

Distance is also a factor: when I wanted a Lane chest, the one two blocks away was a lot more appealing than the one I had to drive to Virginia for. Looking close to home first, before you widen your search, is a good way to save driving time and transport costs.

It also helps to do a little research to figure out what styles you like. Pinterest is REALLY good for this. I personally like early 20thc stuff, especially 30s and 40s. You might like midcentury modern better, or a rougher, more industrial look.

Once you’ve decided on a look, you do NOT have to drain your bank account all at once. If you find a key piece, there’s nothing wrong with waiting a couple of months before you start looking for the next one; in the meantime keep your eyes peeled for really good deals and smaller things, like art or lamps, that will class up the joint.

Once in a great while the stars will align, and you’ll be able to rent a Uhaul on a Saturday morning, make three stops fifteen minutes apart from each other, and come home with half a room for $400. This is awesome when it happens, but usually requires advanced-level craphound skills which take time to develop. In the meantime, be patient and think about paint colors.

Good luck, and happy hunting!

Comments

[minim_calibre]

I think my parents probably have that desk. Possibly salvaged from an actual school, even. Sadly, they're still using it, and also, it's across the country from you.

And speaking of which! What you can find is going to depend on where you live, with, say, Seattle being a pain in the neck for finding awesome Victorian or high-end designer pieces, but AWESOME if you like mid-century modern with a strong Danish influence. (Though, of course, because of the popularity of the MCM stuff right now, it's actually cheaper to find the decent Victorian pieces, though you'll want to go to an antique mall to find them, as the ones on Craigslist around these parts are perpetually overpriced.)

Just from my regular Craigslist checks, and what I know about our yard sale prices (one of my BFFs runs a secondhand fashion store on eBay), Seattle in general is filled with people who assume that they should be able to charge what they think an antique store would on just about anything. Which is why I usually wind up getting my actual vintage pieces at antique stores.

That said, I got an amazing LC3 repro from the 1980s, complete with down-wrapped cushions and heavy-duty leather, for $60 on Craigslist, because the sellers assumed it was Naugahyde. It's not the authorized Cassina, but the brand that made it is Cassina-level in terms of price and quality.

[holli]

Yeah, location does make a difference. The DC area has a huge stock of prewar housing (especially 20s and 30s) so furniture from that era is pretty easy to find and not terribly in demand. Midcentury modern is pretty pricey around here, too, but it's not my preferred style anyway.

That couch is one hell of a find! Nice work.

[minim_calibre]

It's the classic club chair, not the sofa. THOUGH I SWEAR IT FITS TWO PEOPLE. Not that two people are allowed on it, because it is mine, damn it.

It's my baby. I love it and like to curl up in it with a book and my coffee.

(My actual sofa is an older, but not vintage, Ethan Allen leather number that was part of a divorce sale where the guy's ex-wife wasn't able to unload it, and he just wanted it gone. For $50, it's fairly nice.)

I used to have a vintage wine red mohair 1930s sofa. Which I got for free, and which I gave away because as beautiful as it was, it was also exceedingly uncomfortable, and there was no way we could afford to have it redone after the kidlet was born. Still, it was a gorgeous piece. I miss looking at it.

If I were looking for serious buys within driving distance out here, I'd probably hit Portland. Its boom pre-dated Seattle's, so the nicer stuff's available, and the COLA is slightly lower, and prices tend to reflect that.

[ankaret]

I covet that painted cabinet and your chest of many drawers.

I have also been upgrading from particle board lately! I am on the prowl for an apothecary chest but I haven't seen one I love enough to commit to yet.

[holli]

Thanks! They actually came from the same estate.

I am currently having heart palpitations over this dental cabinet, which I can neither justify nor afford.

[cyprinella]

It helps to also know your IKEA so you don't get screwed. I've walked into more than one consignment/antique place recently to find IKEA furniture labeled as vintage or mid-century.

[boosette]

Having brought bedbugs into my house stowed away on a gorgeous side table, I would like to add: Bedbugs to the list of things to look for and avoid. Because oh damn that was the most expensive piece of furniture I ever bought, what with the moving apartments and the storage unit I still haven't cleared out that followed almost a month of being super itchy for "no reason" and two months camping at my BFF's.

[veejane]

I've had good luck with Craigslist (and can affirm that some easy chairs, when flipped upside-down, fit into a granny cart for ease of public transit), and even better luck with a cleanout furniture warehouse, the kind that comes in and removes all the junk from your grandma's house after she dies. A lot of their wares are hideous crap, but a lot of it's neutral and in reasonable -- or easily repairable -- shape.

I also got a really good deal on a 1920s bed frame for the simple reason that it's full-sized, and people are moving more and more toward queens or kings. Same with glass-fronted cabinets: as kitchens get more customized and specialized, those cabinets have decreased immensely in popularity, and can be got super-cheap. (Just beware that most of them, the upper shelves are NOT sturdy or secure enough to hold books.)

[grey_bard]

I am looking for something armoire-ish but not huge, but oh boy, it's all complicated by living in New York and not having a car.

My family lives in PA and there is no shortage of vintage-awesome for particle board prices, but anything I get will have to be able to be handled by two average people with a dolly and the back of a station wagon. And I have this nasty suspicion that anything you can hang clothes in will be really heavy.

I know I can get a really narrow armoire from Ikea for an affordable but not amazing price, and it won't weigh much, but I'm wondering if something on the small side for hanging clothes in exists on the vintage or antique market.

If I have to settle for Ikea, I'll just buy some cool reproduction cobalt glass cabinet knobs for $5 and make the best of it, but if there's something better to hope for that wouldn't be too large to safely move...

[holli]

Yeah, that's tough. Option C involves a Uhaul and picking up any other furniture you still need at PA prices, to amortize the cost of the truck, but that's not ideal either.

[grey_bard]

Yeah, but even worse, it's less the cost of transportation and more the DIY labor that worries me.

The potential movers are myself and my mother (relatively strong for our size but around 5') and my father (around the smaller end of average for a man, and sturdily built, but 67). Most of my furniture is lightweight for this very reason.

Maybe a smaller piece of furniture designed for a kid's room? Do those exist?

I'm definitely going the vintage route when my current dresser gives up the ghost, though. Everyone I know who went particle board for a dresser regretted it, including myself.