Interior - Furnishings Costs

[muppie]

What would it cost to have these (I know it's very subjective) for a house:

Master Bedroom:
- King Sized bed
- 2 bed side tables + lights
- Paintings / artwork above the bed
- desk + mirror
- quilt cover with matching color scheme

Guest bedroom:
- Queen sized bed
- Bed side tables (+ light ?)
- Paintings/ artwork / wall decoration

Study:
- Work Desk
- Book shelf (or can use the built in for this)

Another bedroom turned into an office:
- 2 Desks

Formal Lounge:
- Coffee table
- Side table
- Decorations for the tables
- Wall hangings (paintings or something else)

Family / Dining
- Dining table for 8 + chairs
- Rug underneath
- 2 seater lounge + 2 single chairs
- coffee table
- TV stand
- Decorations
- Feature wall

Outdoor Patio
- Outdoor dining table, 6 seater

===========

I went to a place that sells furniture and they have an inhouse interior designer, and they can help me put it together. Is 20K too much ? or too little? The lady said it would probably be 30 - 40K.

Any thoughts, comments, suggestions, ideas?

 

[Sim]

Are you trying to "fully" furnish a house for a particular reason ? Will it be rented out fully furnished ?

If it is for your own place, do you need all that furniture straight away ? Why not start simple and take your time ? Spend the extra money on another IP

 

[muppie]

to "not fully furnish" the house means removing these:

- outdoor setting
- second bed

Is there anything else I can remove to make it "basic" ?

 

[Sim]

Master Bedroom:
- King Sized bed
- Paintings / artwork above the bed

King sized ? Really ?

Paintings ? Artwork ?

Guest bedroom:
- Queen sized bed
- Bed side tables (+ light ?)
- Paintings/ artwork / wall decoration

Do you actually expect guests ? Why not just get a $40 velour air matress for the occasions people come and stay ?

Paintings ? Artwork ? In a room you never use ?

Formal Lounge:
- Side table
- Decorations for the tables
- Wall hangings (paintings or something else)

Side table ? What's that for ?

Decorations for the tables ? Why ?

Wall hangings ? Why ?

Family / Dining
- Dining table for 8 + chairs
- Rug underneath
- coffee table
- Decorations
- Feature wall

Dining table for 8+ chairs ? How many people live in this house ?

You're going to furnish both a formal lounge and a family room ? How many kids do you have ?

Do you really need a feature wall ?

... mup - I'm not criticising you here, and I don't know your needs and goals - but for a single guy buying their first home it seems like you are planning on spending a LOT of money on stuff that you only might need one day.

If you are happy to do that - not a problem ... it really will be a lovely home ! If you like artwork and want to fill your home with it - then great ... it's good for the soul !

I'm just posing the question though - what do you actually NEED ?

Personally if I'm going to furnish a house I'm living in, I would like to take my time to do it and pick and choose the bits that I like rather than trying to do it all at once. Sure, do an entire room at once if you like so you can match furnishings, but leave it at that plus the basics for a while until inspiration hits you for what you'd like in another room. The artwork can come later once you've found something that strikes you.

Then again, I'm no interior decorator

... and I've been married over 11 years and we still haven't finished furnishing our house (still convincing the wife that we need to replace the 40 year old lounge suite that came from her grandmother !!).

 

[muppie]

good food for thoughts. thanks Sim. This is the sort of stuff that is good to get an outside perspective from, as it's all mixed up in my head and it's a bit unclear sometimes. I do agree completely that it's better to invest the money though. On the other hand, when do I enjoy my money? What if I die in 5 years?

 

[muppie]

My rough estimation

bed + set in the bedroom would cost 4K from harvey norman, and this isn't even something that I love or anything... just one random example.

Another bed for guest room would probably be 1K

dining table would probably be 1-1.5K

lounge + tv stand + coffee table for the family room (ha what family?) would probably come in at 5K

desk in the study $400 maybe

2 desks in the office room $800 maybe?

outdoor dining table another 1.5K

So that's 14.5K without any of the little nick nacks, decorations etc. I suppose those little nick nacks won't be 5.5K so 20K would probably be a bit dear if my estimates above is close to reality.

 

[Sim]

On the other hand, when do I enjoy my money? What if I die in 5 years?

What if you die tomorrow ? Why not live life to the fullest now ? Why bother investing at all ?

You are right - this is one of the most difficult questions to answer. There is a conflict there between living life to the fullest in case you don't live to see your next birthday, versus sacrificing now so that you can enjoy life even more in the future. There's no easy answer to that. I think you need to be positive and believe that you should at least get close to the average age for men before you die.

There is the old cliche of "taking time to smell the roses" - and I certainly do believe that you do need to live a more fulfilling life than just working really hard to become wealthy (what's the point in being wealthy if your poor health as a result of the hard work no longer allows you to enjoy it ?). It's all about balance though - not spending everything on living life now, but not living in a tent just to get those extra few dollars a month for investing.

I guess it comes down to a personal decision about whether putting these things in your home will actually make you happier ? Will filling your house with nice things let you die happy if you were to die soon ? That's not a trick question, or even a rhetorical question ... for some people, the answer would be yes ! If that is what you truely need in your life (and I know the urge to make a "home" is something most people experience) - then go for it.

You just need to decide what things would make your life more complete ?

An example - I recently spent over $5000 on a high quality digital piano - something I don't even get much time to play yet (working on that), but even so, it's already made my life much happier - I use it for stress relief - just sitting down and playing for 20 minutes when I've had a bad day, really helps.

My suggestion to you mup - do what you feel is right for you, just don't rush into anything.

 

[Macca]

Hi Muppy,

You could always do what we did, buy a new comfortable bed to get a good nights sleep.

Buy a second hand table and a few chairs, after your meal this becomes your desk.

Only cost a couple of grand.

Buy the rest after your first IP is underway as a reward for delaying your gratification.

 

[redwing]

I heard a while ago of someone renting a "Fully Furnished" IP -was a PPoR but the father passed away so they took some of the stuff and rented it with basic furnishings there to a family friend, rather than removing everything they left a lot of the stuff..

Including artworks etc..alll deductible through depreciation

 

[Andrew_A]

seek within

Mup,

I think the important thing you said was that you still aren't sure and things are whirling around inside your head.

I think the suggestion of just moving in with the bare basics and letting yourself settle in for a few weeks before making any big financial decisions would be a smart move. At the very least you would learn things like where you want the TV and what rooms you spend the most time in etc.

Nothing like the strong emotions of buying a house to cloud your mind and money making decisions.

Hasten slowly

 

[see_change]

Muppie

The only think I'd be putting money into at this stage would be a bed. We bought a queen which has a slated base with independant slates on each side. This way if the kids jump on my wife I don't bounce out the other side....

We have a more expensive table in our lounge for about 2k ( but it hardly gets used .... the really nice ones were from a firm called Nicholas Datyner but they're about 6 K... so we skipped those , maybe later )

The table in our family room cost about $300 from Fantastic Furniture . Look around at the cheaper stores out side Harvey Normal . HN , Ikea and Freedom arn't as cheap as they used to be and there are a range of stores below them in price. A lot of what they have is Cheap , but every so often you'll find something nice at a low price.

With chairs , make sure their comfortable. many lounge settings are designed for looks rather than sitting in .

See Change

 

[muppie]

I went to forty winks to have a look at some mattresses.... a good one seems to be around 2K (just mattress). Is there any other place I should be looking into?

 

[geoffw]

I went to forty winks to have a look at some mattresses.... a good one seems to be around 2K (just mattress). Is there any other place I should be looking into?

Do you want fantastic quality, hang the expense? Or do you want a good basic functional one?

Fantastic Furniture ("Fantastic in the bedroom") has some reasonable looking, comfortable ones. I've used the Bounty model in IPs, and have one at home.

Edit: they don't appear to have stores in Qld though - but there may be equivalent ebds available there.

 

[kerosam05]

muppie,

i just moved into my 1st PPOR. The furniture i bought that i need are:

1. Dining table (plus 6 chairs)
2. Lounge suite (in total 5 seater)
3. Queensize bedframe and mattress
4. Bookshelves x 2
5. Rear pro tv

as for the rest, like coffeetable, shoe rack, bedside table and utensil etc, i am still using them from the time i bought them in uni (about 4 years ago)... and the good thing is they are compatible withmy new furniture and color of the interior. i think some of the guys are giving pretty good advice... get what you need first then shop for what you want later... no hurry to get it up and running with furnishes.

avoid buying doo-dads!

 

[see_change]

Mups , have a look in the yellow pages in Brissie to see who is there. Sleep City are in Sydney.

We got ours for under 1 K about four years ago .

See Change

 

[JamesGG]

Hiya,

When I moved into my own place last year, I bought 2 of those couches with the folding down backs (futons?). One of these was broken - one half of the back was permanently down, in bed mode.

The broken one is my bed, the other serves it time in the lounge room and acts as a spare bed when a mate is too blind to find their way home.

Because one was broken (which didn't bother me at all), it cost me just $280 for the both of them.

Almost a year on, the couch isn't in as good condition as it once was (but that's what you get for buying a cheap one, I guess) but the bed is still keeping me comfortable at night.

Works for me.

Cheers

James.