Is it too early to start hoarding?

[Vishenka69]

It doesn't seem like an actual brick & mortar house is in our immediate future. We can't find anything we both like enough to spend the cash and I'm not about to go into debt for something eh. As my DH put it, I need a time machine to go back a 100 years and commission a house to my specifications, then come back to today and buy it (hoping nothing happened to it in those pesky 100 years).

Anyway, since we've been moving so much, I've been putting off buying just about anything until we finally have a house. At this point, we'll be needing not only ALL new furniture but everything else from curtains to art to accessories to dishes to glasses, etc. The prospect of doing it all at once is a bit daunting. Obviously buying curtains now is ridiculous but what about other things like glasses or a dresser? Since we're looking for a 4 bedroom house, I'm pretty sure that I'll find space for random pieces of furniture (like a bench or an end table). I don't like sets, so every room will be populated with random stuff that will hopefully compliment each other. Is it too early to start buying stuff? Considering I'll have a whole house to play with at some point, there's bound to be an empty wall for a painting. A lot of the stuff I like isn't mass produced and I'm afraid I won't find it again a year from now.

[DCJenn]

Re: Is it too early to start hoarding?

When it comes to art- buy now. We've let some amazing things go because we didn't have the 'right' space and now I regret it.

Furniture is a little more tricky- if you remember my dining room- the furniture in there seemed HUGE in every other house but is dwarfed now by the scale of the walls, windows and doors. Ultimately, we are going to have to replace all of the furniture in the dining room except the table and my fab ebay chairs.

Jenn

Re: Is it too early to start hoarding?

I agree with Jenn. The furniture can be more tricky but I'm sure you could find a place for a few pieces of furniture.

[Cumberland]

Re: Is it too early to start hoarding?

You could also start buying new stuff for your kitchen- dishes, silverware, etc.

Re: Is it too early to start hoarding?

Anyway, since we've been moving so much, I've been putting off buying just about anything until we finally have a house. At this point, we'll be needing not only ALL new furniture but everything else from curtains to art to accessories to dishes to glasses, etc.

We're putting off buying our "good" stuff, too. We've been putting it off for nine years now!

I also like Jenn's advice about buying art now. And since my tastes don't change drastically, my things have a tendency to go together even though I've bought them at different times.

We're renting a bigger house now that's not too different from what we'd like to have eventually. Our shabby chic sofas that looked so cute in our small, antique white living room now look very out of place in this larger, tile-floored house. We'd love leather sofas (and I do like sets of matching things), but we can't afford them yet, and they wouldn't have looked right in our previous houses.

DH & I plan to rent a small(ish) home for the first two years out of fellowship. He wants to buy land and build a house, and we want to take some time to find just the right location. I figure we'll start our hoarding during those two years. Hopefully that will also give us time to get our feet under us financially so we can afford the furniture we'd like in our "permanent" place.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Is it too early to start hoarding?

Thanks for giving me the green light to go shopping. Jenn, we have also missed on a number of art pieces over the years thinking that we'll come back after residency. We were in a yuppy NJ shore town last weekend and there were several interesting galleries and a Tiffany's there. DH still owes me a birthday present, so he kept encouraging me to pick something at Tiffany's but I realized I'd rather have a couple of paintings instead. He was shocked.

There's a store in our town that sells furniture pieces created from scrap rails, old wood and glass. They are stunning but expensive. The armoire we like is $4K. I could ask for it as a birthday present. Or should I stick with a couple of paintings (which will be roughly the same).

Re: Is it too early to start hoarding?

That furniture sounds cool -- post photos if you get it.

Re: Is it too early to start hoarding?

START NOW!

We have never regretted the custom Amish-built cherry dining room hutch/table/chairs that we bought 10 years ago (even though it took a year to be built). We liked it so much that we ordered a matching desk for me to have.

Let's not forget the set of hand thrown porcelain dishes to go in the hutch that we traded our almost new refrigerator and stove for when we moved to Switzerland. These took two years to be completed.

But maybe I shouldn't tell you about the painting we bought and paid for monthly out of grocery money for three years!!

When I fantasize about buying a house again after training - it will have to have the perfect dining room or be remodeled!!!

No regrets! Even though it is squished into a rental right now.

Re: Is it too early to start hoarding?

My new hoarding goal.
A really nice washing machine without an agitator! Our clothes are really aging fast with this one in the rental!

Re: Is it too early to start hoarding?

What did you decide?

I'm probably a little late on this, but it sounds like you have specific furniture picked out, and not specific paintings. I'd go with the furniture. Whenever I find something unique & specific that I LOVE and could possibly find a way to pay for, I almost always regret not splurging for it. (It usually helps if I have time to go home and think about it for a day.)

I'm not into antiques (so it makes sense for DH & me not to start hoarding yet), but we just had some guests over who are into them. They had fun stories to tell about some of the pieces that they acquired early in their relationship!

Have fun shopping!

[Vishenka69]

Re: Is it too early to start hoarding?

We haven't really decided anything. Which is typical for us. We have specific art pieces picked out too. One of the galleries is 1.5 hours away though, so we'll be procrastinating going. I need to call them and see how long they'll have the ones we liked up for (so we don't make the trek for nothing).

The furniture we fell in love with isn't antique but isn't mass produced. We're not sure how many of those pieces exist, we've never seen anything like that, there's no designer name and the store isn't a chain.

I do agree that it's cool when a piece has a story to go with it and it's not, "We borrowed a car to go to IKEA and picked the cheapest available." Although we have funny pictures of our dinner guests trying to help us put together the dressers after a few bottles of wine.