Do you remember when the winning contestants on ‘Wheel of Fortune’ used to have to spend their winnings at the end of the show in a Shopper’s Bazaar? “I’ll take the dining room table for $400, and the projector TV for $850!” a woman would gush – looking at a huge showcase of merchandise.
We had a similar experience two weeks ago. We went to a shopping area near Orlando and started buying a whole house worth of furniture, appliances, mattresses, and everything – for our new place in Celebration FL. It’s like a game show dream – except it’s our money and we’re stuck with our rapid-fire decisions.
To start, we looked at a few furniture stores and found one that clicked … Haverty’s. They are a 125 year-old regional chain whose showrooms look like they fell out of the gracious pages of Southern Livjng magazine (which we love). Their salesperson, Emily, took us around the store while Laura, their decorator, put our floor plan into the computer and then populated it with furniture as we selected things in real time.
The furniture field trip worked out really well. In one stop, we bought a great sectional, cushy ottoman, side chairs, end tables, a big rug, a dining room set, king size bed, dresser, and matching nightstands. Throw in some coordinating pillows and we walked out feeling good two hours later. (We also dropped enough money to buy a nice used car).
That stop was followed by carpeting, new appliances, ceiling fans, new faucets, and more rugs. At night I researched the latest TVs with help from my son at home. Another morning we made a stop for 4 mattresses, box springs, and frames. The salesperson said it was the biggest sale he had had since outfitting a local fire station with 17 beds!
Pretty quickly we realized that the biggest challenge would be sequencing – getting the delivery / installation of everything in the right order. Closing > Painting > Carpeting / Rugs > Major Furniture > Mattresses > Everything Else. Anyone who ever worked on my MegaCorp team knows I’m not a project manager, but still, we’ve gotten the big stuff lined up pretty well.
Today is our final walk-through, closing paperwork, and wiring the purchase $$$ to the title company. Once the sellers sign on Wednesday, they’ll get our money and we’ll get the keys. Then our parade of purchases will really begin.
Have you ever had the need to completely outfit a home with … everything? What do you remember about it?
Image: Haverty’s Furniture
MrFireStation 
I finished building my own home around 1990, so of course I needed to furnish an entire house. Building the house wiped me out, so I had to furnish the house over time. Almost all of the furniture I bought was made at local businesses around Southern CA and Tijuana, Mexico. If you go the Pacific Design Center, you will see displays and catalogs of furniture that you can order specified to your preferred dimensions. They are the front of the store. Unknown to many, is that many of the orders are filled from small shops operating out of Los Angeles and Tijuana, Mexico. My wife and I drove down and worked directly with the owners and saved a ton. Solid wood, wrought iron, and top grain leather. I have local guy that is a furniture restorer who helps me from time to time clean up some wear and tear, especially on the leather furniture.
The interior design service where the designer made computer assisted drawings of the layouts sounds really cool.
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That’s great that you were able to find the actual craftsmen behind the PDC curtains. I bet they were happy to work directly with the end user, too. Still, I can’t imagine the challenge of specifying the actual dimensions of furniture. I would get something measured a bit wrong and the chair wouldn’t sit comfortably – then I’d be mad at myself for as long as I owned it!
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The biggest issue I had was in Tijuana Mexico. I had a wrought iron patio set handmade. Their default design is very straight back chairs. The US accommodates slouching.
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Like those Frank Lloyd Wright chairs! I suppose you can’t bend cast iron, either.
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Since I was on site with the owner, I was able to show him on his store model how I wanted him to have the backs welded at a slight angle to increase the rake. He also made us a wrought iron bed that used solid wrought iron bars that were twisted.
For adjustments like seat depth, these were often available for trying on examples in the store. The main dimension you could dial in was the width. You can also dial in the grade and color of leather. My net cost was about the same as furniture store bought furniture, but I ended up getting better materials like hardwood doweled frames instead of pressboard, solid versus veneered wood, top grain versus bonded leather, and twisted solid iron bars.
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That’s cool. In addition to the higher quality, you also got the pride of at least partly designing your own furniture and customizing it perfectly to your taste. That’s fun and adds to the pride of ownership.
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