The Best Places to Shop for Furniture on a Newlywed Budget

Anyone who has ever furnished a home knows that it's not cheap. I mean the cost of rugs alone will break any newlywed's budget in an instant! But when the tough gets going, the tough spend long hours searching on the Internet for the best deals to stretch their money further. That's the way the saying goes, right? When Justin and I got married I knew we would be starting out with very minimal furniture. I had a bedroom set that I had purchased when I moved to New York but with two dogs and two people sleeping in it every night, we knew we wanted to upgrade to a king size bed (which is funny because now we've stopped letting the dogs sleep with us all together). Other than a few random desks and tables I had acquired over the years, we would be heading to Georgia with virtually no furniture. 

To put it even more into perspective, we moved from a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment to a three bedroom, two bathroom house. Needless to say, we were going to be buying a lot of furniture in the next couple months in order to turn our house into a liveable home. We don't have the house completely done yet but it's slowly coming together and I'm very pleased with our furniture choices so far which is why this post was born! It is possible to find great furniture without spending a fortune, without buying everything at IKEA, or without buying a matching suite from a furniture store. Here are a few of the furniture items we've bough and the best places to shop for furniture on a newlywed budget! 

Couches

I had the couch I wanted picked out before we even got rid of the old one up in New York. The IKEA Ektrop sofa is the perfect couch for our modern farmhouse look and is super affordable as well. When shopping at IKEA it can be hard to know what's good quality and what is going to be a piece of junk but my rule for buying furniture at IKEA is that typically anything over $100 is going to be pretty good quality. Now I will spare you all of the messy details of our IKEA couch delivery process because I think I've ranted about that enough but so far we are so pleased with the couch! 

The best part about the IKEA Ektrop sofa is that the couch has a slipcover that is removable as are all of the covers on the cushions making it a great option for a family with pets. I do regret not steaming or ironing the slipcover before we put it on the couch but that's something that is easily changed. We chose to get the Lofallet Beige color to save a few bucks since the white is so much more expensive and because we knew it would hold up to dogs and people better. 

Farmhouse Dining Room Table

I was convinced that Justin and I would never find the perfect table that we could agree upon. I had a vision for a large farmhouse dining room table and he had a vision for something that wasn't going to cost a fortune. The dining room is considered the heart of the home so I knew I wanted it to be a place that was inviting and welcoming, where we could have large amounts of people gather. We looked everywhere, and I mean, everywhere for a table. Most of them were over $400 for a decent one and we weren't exactly comfortable spending that. The funny thing is, we found this table at our Post Exchange here at Fort Benning (which is kind of like a Target or a Walmart for the military if you didn't know) randomly one day when we were picking up groceries. It was priced right at $340 and we were all set to buy until someone told us we had to order it. Turns out it was $100 more online and we still haven't gone back to get the price fixed.

Anyways, we ended up buying the table because we both loved it so much and knew it was perfect for us. The table is the Ashley Furniture Truddell Round Dining Room Table and I'm absolutely obsessed with it. The table actually expands into an oval shape in order to seat up to 6 people which is perfect for the types of gatherings we're planning on having. Ashley Furniture is a great brand that is somewhat on the pricey side but they tend to have great deals going all of the time. The number one reason I continue to buy Ashley Furniture despite the price tag is because I know it's good quality and can stand up to pretty much anything you can throw at it. 

Mismatched Dining Room Chairs

We chose to save a little money by not going with the matching chairs to our table because we felt like they really weren't the style we were looking for and modernized the table a little too much. So once the table was purchased, I was on the hunt for the perfect chairs. Y'all, this was a lot harder than I had imagined it would be! When I ordered these chairs, I had no idea if we would like them and was mentally prepared for having to send them back. Justin wasn't sold on the metal chairs and I wasn't sure if the upholstered ones would even be decent quality because of how affordable they were. 

The reason I chose to buy the Harper Bright Design dining chairs and the Poly and Bark Trattoria Side Chairs were for the simple fact they came in packs of two and four respectively. The prices I was seeing on other websites for just one chair were crazy! I wasn't sure how I would feel about the bronze color on the metal chairs but they ended up not looking the color I was expecting at all which was perfect because I love them even more!

Rugs

Okay, but for real, can someone please tell me why rugs are so expensive? With our entire house being hardwood floors, I knew I wanted a rug in the living and dining rooms since those are the areas where we will most likely spend most of our time. But rugs are crazy expensive! So we naturally moved them to the bottom of the list when we found this gem at Target. It was actually in the outdoor patio section of the store and I'm so happy we were randomly looking there because it's the perfect rug for our living room. Initially, we bought it for the dining room but realized we needed an 8 x 10 in the dining room. Right now the rug does blend in with the couch a little bit but once we get a throw for the couch and a coffee table, I think it will be perfect! 

King Size Bed

Buying a king size bed and mattress on a budget was definitely a challenge. I have had some pretty bad experiences with buying cheap mattresses and bedframes so I was definitely wary of buying a bed and mattress online. We took a chance with Wayfair and purchased this wrought iron bedframe because I was obsessed with the curves and the detailing and a memory foam mattress. I can't believe how comfortable the mattress is and we didn't pay more than $250 for it. We also purchased a box spring from Wayfair to elevate the mattress but it was a bit of a pain to put together. 

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