Furnishing Your Home on a Budget
Have you shopped for furniture lately? Can you believe the cost of furnishing your home? $800 for a couch, $2000 for a dining room set, $700 for a “casual” kitchen set
While we do have some items in our home for which we have paid “market value” at a standard furniture store, when shopping for casual bargain furniture, I’ve had great luck at the Christmas Tree Shops.
If you haven’t checked out this New England icon yet, you’re in for a treat! My husband’s comment after a recent trip (possibly his first) was “Wow, they have a lot of stuff no one needs, but I guess they have it a lot cheaper than anyone else!” While that is probably true, you can also find a lot of useful household items, gifts, and home décor for a lot less than you would pay at a department store.
While the furniture shopping at the Christmas Tree Shops is certainly “hit or miss”, persistence often pays off.
When we first moved to our current house, we had discarded our old kitchen set (a bargain itself) as it had some maintenance issues, and did not really “go” in the new kitchen. Our new kitchen is fairly long, but skinny, and we have a nice, separate dining area. We needed something to fit in a small corner, to use as sort of breakfast/lunch area. I found a tall skinny white wood table with two matching stools for about $50 at the Christmas Tree Shops!
Recently, I was looking for replacements for some beautiful but very delicate dining room chairs. I wanted something classic, in a dark enough wood to blend in with my dining room and living room décor, but sturdy enough for our son and niece and nephew to sit in. The least expensive chairs I could find at the large furniture retailers were $40 a piece plus delivery charges. I found a set of Windsor back chairs in dark maple with black trim at the Christmas Tree Shops for only $20 a piece. You could buy as many or as few as you wanted, and I shipped them home in my Hyundai!
While you may want to shop the higher end furniture stores for lasting pieces, or for a special decorative piece, if you are looking for decent looking, inexpensive, useful items, the Christmas Tree Shops may have just what you’re looking for!