We do have a home that isn’t on wheels and whenever I post photos on Instagram of it I am always bombarded with messages of how everyone loves the style. Anyone who knows me knows I love a good bargain, and majority of the furniture that makes up our home has been purchased second hand. I thought I would write a little post about how I have managed to furnish our entire home for a few hundred dollars, and some simple steps so you can do the same!
Our house is brand new, and there were particular things I wanted to splurge on - hardwood timber floors, large windows and doors, a beautiful kitchen and quality finishings in the bathrooms. I figured I would make up for my splurge items by trawling the internet for bargains to furnish it! A girlfriend shared a very helpful tip with me - using Power Point to be able to visually see all of the pieces I wanted to purchase together before I bought them. I would find the furniture I loved, make a little mood board on Power Point and then try to find the same or similar on Gumtree or Facebook marketplace. I’m going to share some photos of our home with descriptions of where I sourced all of the furniture - enjoy!
We purchased the kitchen pendants from Early Settler while they were having a huge sale and bar stools from Kmart, I keep most of our appliances in the butlers pantry so that the kitchen (for the most part) stays clear of clutter.
We found a beautiful silky oak side board in an antique store for $200, I use it to store all of our second hand books - my collection is a little out of control. There is an op shop near us that has fill a bag of books for $2, lord help me.
The lounge room has our West Elm couch that I found on Gumtree, we didn’t get it dirt cheap but saved around $500 off retail price. The vintage pretzel chair is my all time favourite find - for $100! I had it recovered by a local small business and my father in law re-varnished it for us. It is beautiful!
Indies bed was gifted to us by my Aunty, and Rivers bed was $20 on Facebook marketplace. Both kids have a lot of second hand books, free or cheap artwork and handmade items filling their rooms. Their entire closet is hand me downs, op shop finds or sale items, I really love the process of finding clothes that are pre loved, it gives me a rush to find beautiful items for a fraction of the cost and I also feel its more sustainable.
Our upstairs lounge pictured was purchased brand new from Freedom, it was from our previous house and works so well with everything in the new house. I’m always asked where our rugs are from, I purchased the pink downstairs rug from Miss Amara Loves and then entered a competition of theirs to win an extra rug - I won! I have wanted an authentic persian rug for as long as I can remember, but our budget wouldn’t allow for it. I fell in love with the pink and the price of the Miss Amara rug, they have free shipping and a great return policy! Not sponsored, just a very happy customer!
Most of our artwork I find online and have it printed at Officeworks and purchase frames from Kmart. I also have a lot of dried palms for decoration in woven baskets, I just ask friends or family that have beautiful gardens if I can have their leftovers after pruning. Jons grandfather was into fossicking and we have a lot of the crystals he found scattered around our home, along with some amazing shells from our travels.
Our King size mattress was a freebie, the side tables were $10 each from an op shop - we just painted them black and purchased cute little handles for them. Our guest room has a gorgeous cane bed head I picked up from Facebook for really cheap (under $50 from memory!) And I found a cactus print for our front entry from a local shop having a clear out sale, it was $50 and already framed.
Our pool area has an outdoor shower, the shower rail is from the house that was originally on the block and Jon built the backing with leftover timber from the demolition - basically the whole thing was free. I purchased our dining table when I was 12 years old haha! I always wanted to get married and have babies young, I started planning domestic bliss after finding this dining table at a garage sale. (I still maintain I’m not an OCD weirdo.)
So remember - try to think of a style you love and use Pinterest or Instagram for some inspiration. Go ahead and plan each room out in PowerPoint, you can use images of your old furniture to see if it works well with anything new you’re wanting to buy. Then start tracking down a second hand version of what you want, another bonus of planning it out this way was that I didn’t buy anything I didn’t need. I hope this little post inspires you to go “treasure hunting” at your local op shop and know that you can create beautiful spaces on a budget!
♡