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A new home is a very exciting and emotional purchase that fills you with hope and angst in equal portions. You are hopeful that it represents the start of something very good and long lasting in your life. But you are anxious about all the things you still have to do to transform that house into a home.
One of the first things you need to do is repairs. There are always things that need to be addressed. The leaky pipes are one of them. You probably didn’t think it was a big deal until you discovered how much it costs to have new pipes put in. There goes the furniture budget. Fortunately, that slab leak repair will cost a lot less than you thought because there are newer and better ways to do it.
You can actually do without the expensive and unnecessary overhaul you expected. You will also be pleasantly surprised to learn that renewing your current pipes can be done in hours and not days or weeks. Once you have dealt with your necessary repairs, you can turn your attention to the furnishings. The good news continues. There is a lot of furniture you think you need but can really do without. Despite what furniture stores lead you to believe, you can easily do without the following:
A Sofa
If you haven’t decided on a sofa, it could be that you don’t need one at all. According to the people in the know, going without a sofa is not such a bad idea. People feel like they need to purchase one and furniture stores feed into that notion. After all, a sofa is likely the most expensive piece of living room furniture you are ever likely to buy.
If you live in a city, you will find that living rooms are not very large. A sofa is a huge piece of your space budget. You can often do better by grabbing two or three comfy, but not oversized chairs. While we’re at it, deep-six the coffee table. Those shin busters double as garbage collectors and they take up all of the usable walking space.
A Full Bedroom Suite
The only piece of furniture you need for a small bedroom is a bed. Everything else is optional. As with the living room, furniture stores have unlimited space to stage extravagant bedroom setups. You will find that clever shelf organizers in the closet can do the majority of what the rest of the suite would have done. You can put in a small vanity. But you will enjoy your bedroom a lot more if it is not cluttered.
A Dining Room Table
There are many benefits to living in a smaller house. But one of the drawbacks is that you might have to give up the separate, formal dining room. There is reason to believe that the traditional dining room is all but dead. Family sizes are a lot smaller than they used to be. We have different schedules and eat at different times. And the main place many busy young adults eat is in the room where the TV happens to be.
People who have dining rooms are repurposing them as family rooms, offices, classrooms, workout rooms, music rooms, and storage spaces. What they are not doing is installing huge tables with 6 chairs, 4 or which they will never use. They are opting for folding tables when a larger eating space is necessary.
It all comes down to simplifying life. The best way to do that is to eliminate the big things you really don’t need. Simple repairs beat expensive replacements every time. Don’t let a plumber rip out your pipes when you can have the leaks repaired in place. Your living room is for living, not for housing huge pieces of furniture you don’t really need. Your bedroom is for sleeping. And your dining room is for… It is for whatever you most need that space to be.