Graphic by Ella Sylvie
In January, my roommates and I made the difficult decision to search for a new housing arrangement. Among the stressors of finding a new place to live and finding people to sublease to, we were faced with the challenge of almost completely furnishing our new apartment from scratch. Equipped with a Facebook account and a burning desire to find a good deal, I took on the responsibility of finding furniture with a goal of getting as much from the secondhand market as I possibly could. Now, fully moved in, I’m excited to share the lessons I learned.
- Know Your Comfort Zone
Buying from the secondhand market isn’t exactly easy, pretty or comfortable. Before you begin your journey, take a moment to think about what you are and aren’t comfortable with. Two things to consider are:
- What you’re buying. It’s okay if you’re not comfortable buying everything from the secondhand market. Most people are fine with buying things like photo frames, but other items are different; when I shared with my friends I was buying a couch off the secondhand market, many shuddered. There’s no universal right or wrong answer, but you should be clear with yourself about what your boundaries are.
- Where you’re buying from. When shopping from the secondhand market, you will likely end up buying from either thrift/consignment stores or strangers online. Many individuals have expressed concerns over popular thrift chains like Salvation Army and Goodwill and the homophobic and ableist policies they have endorsed. However, not everyone is comfortable messaging a stranger and meeting up with them to make a transaction. Consider what feels most comfortable, safe, and in-line with your own values before beginning your search.
- Join Your Local Buy-Nothing Group
Before beginning your secondhand search, make sure you’re plugged into your community’s Buy-Nothing Group. You can do so by downloading the Buy Nothing app, or looking for your local group on Facebook. According to the Buy Nothing Project, there are over 7k Buy-Nothing communities across the globe. These communities embody the gift economy, connecting neighbors to give and request goods and services without expectation for reciprocation. In many large cities, these communities are hyper-local, spanning specific neighborhoods, so that you don’t need to travel far to access gifts.
Being in this group also allowed me the opportunity to connect to my neighbors in a new city, as well as furnish my home. Since joining my local Buy-Nothing Community, I’ve been able to source an incredible collection of furnishings. Some of these include a handful of photo frames, a furry pouf to keep under my desk, and a wooden kitchen table and chairs.
- Research the Market
One of the biggest appeals of buying from the secondhand market is the prices. By buying secondhand, you can purchase your furniture at just a fraction of its on-the-shelf market retail price. In order to be effectively thrifty, take the time to look at popular sites and window shop in order to gauge the market price of new goods. I regularly looked at sites like Wayfair, Overstock, Amazon, and Ikea (the most likely places I would be buying from if I bought brand-new). I avoided sites like West Elm and Pottery Barn, whose regular prices were way outside of my budget.
By doing this, I was able to determine that a decent couch usually goes for a minimum of $600 for cheap materials, and minimum $1000 for more sturdy materials. Because I did this research beforehand, I knew that the couch and loveseat combination on Facebook Marketplace I landed on was an absolute steal at $300 for both items. Rather than buying a brand-new lamp from Ikea for $60, I found the same model for $40. In general, I stuck to a rule that I would need to save at least 30% of the retail price in order to justify buying it used instead of new.
- Ensure Transportation (and Help)
One of the taken-for-granted luxuries of buying brand new furniture is the delivery and installation process. Unfortunately, this luxury is lost in the secondhand market. When buying a piece of furniture, ask yourself realistically, “how am I going to get this home?”. Without a car, many pieces of heavy furniture are very difficult to move over long distances. Without a friend, getting these pieces might not even be possible.
Luckily, there are workarounds to these challenges. When moving my couch and loveseat, I rented a moving truck from my local Home Depot, and compensated my roommate graciously with delivery from any restaurant of their choice for moving the pieces with me. For those whose friends aren’t as easily swayed by the offer of free enchiladas, workers on apps like TaskRabbit can be hired by the hour for tasks like moving furniture. These workarounds may cost extra, but you will likely continue to save money overall if you’re cost-savvy.
- Polish Up Your Cleaning and Repair Skills
The secondhand market offers some incredible finds, especially vintage and retro ones. As a result, their age might be reflected in their appearance. Despite this, you’d be surprised by the miracles a little bit of cleaning and repair skills can do. I personally developed my own skills through the education and expertise of Tik Tok user Ann Russell, a lovely British woman with an encyclopedic knowledge of cleaning tactics. Learning what types of residue needed to be cleaned with acids versus bases also helped me learn to clean items, helping me revive old and discolored metal and remove stains from fabrics.
Similarly, basic repair skills can help make a creaky and troublesome piece of furniture almost good as new. Youtube tutorials can be a fantastic resource for almost every basic repair. And even if you don’t have access to a toolbox in your home, more communities are beginning to create tool libraries to give temporary access to tools, workspaces, and lessons.
- Rent an Upholstery Cleaner
While this is tangential to the last point, I cannot stress this enough: rent an upholstery cleaner! If you’re bringing anything with fabric into your home, in addition to checking for bedbugs before you bring it into your home, you should be cleaning it once it’s in your home. Dust and dirt finds its home in fabrics, even if it isn’t visible to the naked eye. Furthermore, pet dandruff and fur can linger around long past a furry friend’s presence, irritating the senses of those with pet allergies.
I rented mine from Home Depot for about $25 for a full day. I bought my own upholstery cleaner (a concentrate which will last me a long time) and went to town on my secondhand couches, removing all the remnants of its last owner’s home. It was a tiresome process, but it left my new couch and loveseat smelling nice and feeling and looking brand new.
Whether you’re planning on remodeling your entire home or picking up a new accent item, the secondhand furniture search is sure to find you some treasures. However, it isn’t always a straightforward process. When taking on this endeavor, give yourself time. As opposed to the retail market, the secondhand market moves slowly. Some weeks may go by without something catching your eye, so make sure to budget your time and be patient with the process.
One way of speeding up the process when the market is slow is to think outside of the box. Consider repurposing some items beyond what they’re marketed as, or consider repainting something to fit your personal aesthetic. When I couldn’t find any affordable bar carts, I extended my search to look for a coffee bar and ended up loving the purpose it served for me. Now in addition to having a place for my espresso machine and my canned and bottled drinks, I have a rack for hanging my favorite mugs. TV consoles can easily double as short bookshelves, and vice versa.
No matter how creative you can be, you should make sure you’re giving yourself a mental break from the search when it becomes too difficult. Halfway through my search, I began experiencing Tetris syndrome, a mental condition that occurs when devotion to a task results in changing thought patterns, mimicking fixation. I personally became so worried that I wasn’t going to find the right furniture that I was checking Facebook Marketplace hourly. I spent an abnormal amount of time thinking of ways to refine my search and to find crafty solutions. This resulted in me feeling extra stressed during an already stressful time in my life.
I didn’t have a tell-all guide when I started my search, but luckily, you do! Now go out, and have fun furnishing!