Moving to a new place is exciting but buying new furniture can be stressful and nerve-racking. Not only can buying furniture be costly and time-consuming, but it can also be difficult to find the ‘right’ furniture for you. However, the internet makes it so much easier to shop for furniture. This is due to the fact that you have access to various and numerous types of furniture right at your home without having to drive from store to store. Nevertheless, whether you decide to buy furniture online or offline, it is important to consider some of these steps you can follow before you start shopping.

Are you…furnishing from scratch?

Yes

1. Identify your own personal style and choose a theme
   Make a list of your favorite colors, patterns and textures. When you are finished identifying your favorite color and style of furniture, pick a theme for your furniture. In other words, narrow down your color choices and choose whether your furniture is going to be contemporary, traditional, rustic, or formal.
2. Take your personal lifestyle into account
   Before deciding on which furniture to buy, consider some of these questions first: are you planning to get married and have children soon? Do you have pets? Do you live by yourself? How long are you planning to live in the house you are currently moving into? Consider these factors and pick furniture with components that matches your lifestyle the most.
3. Find out your furniture budget
   Determine how much you are willing to spend on furniture. It is always wise to have a set budget for everything so that you can spend your money more mindfully. What good is a furniture buying guide if you end up overspending on the furniture you want?
4. Decide what you need first
   Once you have identified what kind of furniture you need that matches your lifestyle, decide which items you need the most or want the most. Purchase these items first and then buy other furniture that matches these items.

No

1. Decide what you need
   Before you start shopping, decide or identify what kind of furniture you need. Meanwhile, also keep your lifestyle into consideration. For instance, do you have kids or do you plan on having kids in the near future? Do you have pets? Etc.
2. Identify your current furniture style
   What kind of furniture do you already have? In other words, is your current furniture contemporary, traditional, rustic, or formal? When buying new furniture, it is important to buy items that match the style that already exists. For instance, if you need a new wardrobe in your room already furnished with contemporary furniture, buy a wardrobe that is also in a contemporary style.
3. Set your furniture budget
   How much are you willing to spend or how much can you spend on new furniture? Identify your furniture budget to spend your money wisely.

Whether you are buying furniture online or offline, follow the tips and guidelines in this furniture buying guide to help you find the right furniture for you.

If you’re like most people, you don’t know if the furniture you are looking at buying is high quality or low quality.  As a result, you have to rely on the word of the sales representative, which is often a recipe for disaster from the viewpoint of the consumer.  Not that all sales people out there are out to rip you off, but some are.  Here are a nice handful of furniture buying tips so that you at least know a little bit about the quality of the furniture you are purchasing, first as it relates to couches.

• Generally speaking, the heavier the cushions on the couch, the better quality they are.
• The springs in the sofa should be sturdy.  If you remove the cushions and push down on the couch, you should very easily feel the springs pushing back.
• Check for a matching pattern all the way around the couch.  If the whole couch seems like one seamless pattern all the way around the couch, it is probably worth more than $800.
• For any hardwood framed sofa, ask if the wood has been kiln dried.  If they haven’t, they will be more prone to warping and cracking from moisture.
• Make sure nothing wiggle around or creaks.
• Any sofa price at $1000 or higher should have 5 legs instead of just 4.  That fifth leg should be right in the middle of the sofa.
• If a couch has legs that are actually built into the frame, it is higher quality than a couch with screw-on legs.
• The side-bottom board of a sofa should be at least 1 ¼ inch to 1 ½ inch thick.
• A hollow couch is a cheaper couch.
• Find out what kind of leather a couch is.  Top-grain is the best.
• Leather-like and leather match is not actually leather.
• Anything less than top-grain leather could wear more easily, and will need to stay moisturized and out of the sun to maintain a decent condition.
• Make sure all the seams are straight.

This list is far from a complete list of furniture buying tips, but it should get you started.  Knowing just this much should help significantly in preparing you for shopping for furniture.   But that doesn’t mean that the furniture buying tips stop there!  Here are some more related to drawers and dressers.

• Check the corners of the drawers for any inconsistencies, or to see if the core (usually some kind of plywood or fiber board) can be seen through the corners.  You shouldn’t be able to see it.
• Low quality drawers will use some kind of rollers to make the drawers move forward and back.
• Rough interiors on drawers means that the dresser is low quality.
• Beware of paper covered particle board, even if the paper seems to look just like normal wood.

Don’t worry.  We’re not done yet!  There are still some more furniture buying tips related to all furniture in general, and here they are!

• A 1 year warranty can often indicate a lower quality product when it comes to furniture.
• Higher quality products often carry 5 year warranties on all parts of the product.
• Look out for the term “Only to the original address”.  That means that moving voids your warranty, which is not good.

This might seem like a lot.  It might even seem like information overload.  However, there are plenty more furniture buying tips out there on the internet that you can absorb.  This is only the tip of the iceberg!

How do you find more tips?  Try searching Google or Yahoo for the following phrases: “Furniture Buying Tips”, “How To Buy Furniture”, “Purchasing Furniture”, or “Furniture Buying Guide” as a start.  You might have even reached this page by searching one of the above.  If so, then you already know how useful these searches can be!

If that’s not enough for you, try looking for a carpenter who you can ask about the quality of store bought wooden furniture.  Just keep in mind that HIS “furniture buying tips” might be slanted so that it makes him sound like the best source for furniture.

You can do similar things for couches as well.  Ask someone who works with upholstery, even if you only found out about that person online.

Just remember where you heard your first furniture buying tips, right here!  Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions, or even if you just agree with our tips!