Designing and furnishing your house or apartment is one of the best things about moving into a new place. It’s a great process of seeing how a place turns in to a home. To make it cosy and lovely, you have to choose furniture that suits your taste and interior. Unfortunately, sometimes it can be pretty difficult to choose the right furniture so that it doesn’t rip you off and at the same time it’s exactly what you want. Therefore, some people rely on second hand furniture and find it perfectly appropriate and satisfactory. On the other hand, others don’t trust old furniture and even consider it pretty low-class. However, as new furniture doesn’t always mean better, old doesn’t necessarily look shabby and time spent on choosing is sometimes an important factor, there are many different opinions whether second hand furniture is worth it. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of buying second hand furniture for your home or office.
Pros
- Price
Price is an important factor. When it comes to saving some money on home improvement, buying second hand furniture is an excellent choice. Second hand is normally much less expensive, unless it’s an antique piece. It’s often possible to find a second hand piece of furniture that you like much better than a similar new one, according to HireHouseCleaner, and at the same time the new furniture will most probably mess with your budget quite noticeably. In that case, it’s really useless to spend a lot of money on something that you can get at much lower price and enjoy a lot more. And the money you save when purchasing second hand furniture will allow you to buy something extra than literally throw the money away. - Environment
Older people tend to say that years ago they didn’t used to throw away and replace thinks that are broken but repaired them and enjoyed them for many more years. It’s indeed true that many people prefer to throw furniture away because they simply don’t want to bother repairing it, although sometimes it can be very easy to put your old furniture back in use. Another thing people say is that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. If someone has furniture that they don’t fancy but you find great and exactly what you were looking for, it’s more than reasonable to buy it. - Change
Another good side of second hand furniture is the fact that you can always change something about it, without feeling bad about ruining something you’ve spent lots of money on. You can always repaint or re-upholster old furniture and make it look just like you want it to. You can even make it look like a piece of expensive new furniture, only you’ll have spent much less on it. Also, in case you accidentally damage your furniture while cleaning it, you would definitely feel worse if you knew you spent a lot of money on it.
Cons
- Time
As it has advantages, buying second hand furniture has some disadvantages as well. Very often people don’t have enough time to search for furniture, so they prefer to simply enter a shop and pick the piece they like the most among the variety of pieces offered in a furniture shop. - Warranty
New furniture usually comes with a warranty, which is a very big plus side. Unfortunately, second hand furniture doesn’t have any warranty at all. Many people don’t want to risk buying old furniture that can break fast, therefore many of them choose to buy new, even though it costs more. - Appearance
Even repaired and refurbished, second hand furniture can sometimes look old, especially when compared to brand new furniture. And even if old pieces are in good shape, new furniture still looks more fresh and clean.
