The excitement and sense of accomplishment of buying your first home is only equalled by the joy of making it your own! Knowing how to plan and having easy steps to follow for choosing furniture is essential.

First Time Buyer’s Guide To Furniture

The excitement and sense of accomplishment of buying your first home is only equalled by the joy of making it your own! Knowing how to plan and having easy steps to follow for choosing furniture is essential. To stop you feeling daunted or buying blindly, this guide talks you through everything from refining your preferences to the core pieces for every room.

brighton grey 2 seater

Curate your taste

Before you do anything, you need to lay the groundwork for success. Your first task is collating inspiration for the home you’re working with and the aesthetics you lean towards. Home magazines and interiors blog posts are fantastic resources, as are home décor hashtags on Instagram and pinning images you like on Pinterest. The latter is particularly valuable as you can effectively niche your taste in a range of ways. Create boards around the home era to see what’s possible, research professional and real-world design, and save images around style like Mid-Century while building boards for each room of the house. You can use this inspiration phase to gain an objective sense of what styles you are inclined towards while also observing trends in colour, finishes, furniture shapes and the overall mood you are hoping to build in the home. Another hidden benefit of these tactics are that you can have a trial run on certain style ideas. We recommend you make a vision board or save a group of magazine clippings that’s just for one space then leave it for a few weeks before revisiting. With time on your side, you can gauge if the images saved showcase ideas that were a fleeting fancy or you might find that this time solidified your desire to go in that design direction.

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Trento Small Oak Extendable Dining Table

Trento Small Oak Extendable Dining Table

Establish your needs & your priorities

For your budget, many experts recommend you focus on the room where you spend the most time, like the living room, but this is genuinely unique to every person. Reflecting on all aspects of how you will use your home is your next important step as this will feed directly into your financial planning for furnishing.

Evaluate your needs and priorities with the following questions:

  • How long are you planning to live in the home?
  • Are these pieces for short-term or long-term use?
  • Can you compromise on any furniture, e.g. do you already own a sofa you love?
  • Will your family be growing, will you have housemates, and will you have pets?
  • Do you expect to have overnight guests?
  • Do you plan to entertain regularly?
  • Will you need to work from home at any point?

Once you’ve established some defining needs and priorities that you can use in relation to specific rooms of your home and the associated furniture pieces, you will have more frameworks around planning your purchases. Factors like if it is just an investment property or a forever home can help with understanding if you see the furniture being with you long-term or that it might need to work in a range of places. You might also be expecting that the home will be a social space for loved ones or somewhere kids are going to grow up, therefore you can equate the investment to time and lifestyle. From shopping for a gorgeous Inspire Navy Velvet Sofa to bringing home a space-saving Trento Small Oak Extendable Dining Table and a charming Drift Oak Bedframe, your needs and priorities shortlist will be crucial as you properly outline your budget and select furniture.

Inspire Navy Velvet Sofa

Inspire Navy Velvet Sofa

Trento Small Oak Extendable Dining Table

Drift Oak Bedframe

Research fabrics & finishes

All investment furniture should have functionality, durability and a distinct style with quality materials and construction that make the piece stand up to use. While some fabrics and finishes are trending, like velvet which has fast become a modern classic, others like leather and oak are timeless due to their hard-wearing longevity. Researching fabrics and finishes before you shop is part of developing your budget as you can have an advance idea of what is personally suitable for you. You can consider furniture and accessory features like hardware to help with refining your style preferences further, too. For example, the Oledo Yellow Velvet Dining Bench is a style that combines structure and finish with key industrial meets opulent elements. So, whether it’s a sideboard that is modern and elegant like the Made White and Matt Orange Sideboard or a sleekly upholstered armchair like the Cooper Grey Fabric Armchair, the fabric and finish of the piece are central to your decision making.

Made White and Matt Orange Sideboard

Made White and Matt Orange Sideboard

Oledo Yellow Velvet Dining Bench

Oledo Yellow Velvet Dining Bench

Cooper Grey Fabric Armchair

Cooper Grey Fabric Armchair

Collate measurements & layout plans before you buy

By now you will have a clear sense of what you like, what you need and your financial plan, so you can work on gathering room measurements and home layout plans. In the process of organising to shop, go room by room through your home to have exact measurements of every space. In addition to the measurements, make a note of possible furniture layouts to reference when you are looking at furniture in person. This way you can plan exactly how you will move the furniture into and out of the room, the accessibility for delivery workers, whether you have the option to update furniture configurations, and then how well hypothetical furniture layouts suit your lifestyle. Combining your needs and preferences with immovable aspects like room sizes is a must before you splash out on a fabulous new L-shaped sofa, a luxurious rug, or a desk for a home office. You are also giving yourself some wiggle room when shopping as you can plan advance solutions before you are in store. Don’t think that just because you adore a 3-seater sofa but don’t have the space that you will be unable to find seating you like. Make sure to ask about size options available and you might be able to opt for a 2-seater and matching armchairs like the Sasha Grey Fabric Sofa design range. Be ready to think creatively and often the preferred style of furniture pieces can be workable in unexpected ways.

Sasha Grey Fabric 2 Seater Sofa

Sasha Grey Fabric 2 Seater Sofa

Brinley Turquoise Velvet Corner Sofa

Brinley Turquoise Velvet Corner Sofa

Poet Ivory Jacquard Large Rug

Poet Ivory Jacquard Large Rug

Sonoma Desk

Sonoma Desk

The pieces that deserve a starring role in every home

The dining room, living room and bedroom all have anchor pieces that you use every day so these are your core items to choose wisely.

Dining Room

For the dining room, you will likely buy the table and seating together however it doesn’t always need to be a matching set. Before you arrive, you will have an idea from room measurements if you are shopping for a round, square or rectangular table. A stunning piece for every home is the Indus Rustic Oak & Peppercorn Table. You could opt for velvet or leather dining chairs to integrate with your home palette or we adore the mix of a fabulous dining bench with a collection of contrasting single chairs. The lush Padstow Charcoal Velvet 2 Seater Dining Bench perfectly accents the refined minimalism of the New York Dining Chair in Skuba Grey for a traditional yet edgy space.

Indus Rustic Oak & Peppercorn Table

Indus Rustic Oak & Peppercorn Table

Padstow Charcoal Velvet 2 Seater Dining Bench

Padstow Charcoal Velvet 2 Seater Dining Bench

New York Dining Chair in Skuba Grey

New York Dining Chair in Skuba Grey

Living Room

For the living room, the sofa is the go-to spot for relaxing by yourself or with a group. A comfortable yet sturdy design in a shape that works with the room is worth every cent. Many designers recommend this as the number one purchase and that you should choose a fabric that meets your taste, budget and lifestyle. In open-plan rooms, a contemporary Cloud Granite Fabric 4-Piece Modular Corner Group design offers room for everyone with a sumptuous cushioned upper. If the space in your home is more compact, then a mix of seating is ideal. We can’t go past the Vesper Leather and Fabric 2 Seater Power Recliner Sofa that you can snuggle up on and treasure for years. Opt for a matching single armchair from the same range or try a Fern Charcoal Fabric Occasional Chair that will bring a sophisticated eclecticism to the room. The last touches to help make a living room feel welcoming are a soft, textured rug and a floor lamp that invite you to settle in no matter the time of day.

Cloud Granite Fabric 4-Piece Modular Corner Group

Cloud Granite Fabric 4-Piece Modular Corner Group

Vesper Leather and Fabric 2 Seater Power Recliner Sofa

Vesper Leather and Fabric 2 Seater Power Recliner Sofa

Fern Charcoal Fabric Occasional Chair

Fern Charcoal Fabric Occasional Chair

Bedroom

Lastly, for the bedroom your main purchase will be the bed frame and mattress. We spend nearly one-third of our lives in bed so comfort, support and construction are what you need to look for in a mattress. The frame should fit and bolster the mattress with reliable firmness that promotes proper rest. You can choose from two types of bed base, a Divan bed or a Bedstead, then from there refine the headboard style of the bed, if you would like a footboard and finally, the material. Wooden beds are highly practical and the Turin Dark Oak Bedframe is a bold design with a rich, grounding stain finish. On the other end of the spectrum, fabric bed frames bring stylish calm to the bedroom for an extra element of softness. The Evie Dark Grey Velvet Bedframe is a chic, neutral option that will work with both monochromatic and bold colour palettes. If you are short of space then the Charlotte Peacock Velvet Ottoman Storage Bedframe is a dreamy choice. Romantic velvet fabric keeps things cosy and the thoughtful design offering hidden storage in the bed base is a functional bonus. For proper rest and to keep you feeling your best, the mattress is a foremost factor. Choose from Memory Foam, Pocket Spring and Open Coil to have a restful, rejuvenating sleep in a bedroom that promises respite every single night.

Charlotte Peacock Velvet Ottoman Storage Bedframe

Charlotte Peacock Velvet Ottoman Storage Bedframe

Turin Dark Oak Bedframe

Turin Dark Oak Bedframe

Evie Dark Grey Velvet Bedframe

Evie Dark Grey Velvet Bedframe

Once you have shopped for the core pieces for dining room,
living room and bedroom, it’s time to choose the accent furniture,
lighting and accessories that will finish your home.
Learn more with our New Home Essentials Guide , Bedside Lockers Guide,
Lighting Guide, and Kitchen Bar & Island Stools Guide!