New House? 4 Tips to Consider Before You Start Piling Furniture into Your Online Cart

Hello there! I’m so glad that you’ve found your way to my inaugural blog post. Today we’re going to chat about a topic that’s near and dear to my heart: namely, “how on earth to tackle furnishing and decorating your first house after years (or decades!) of living in tiny apartments.” How’s that for a descriptive introduction?!

I found myself in that exact situation four and a half years ago. We had just purchased our first house – a lovely 1904 Victorian in Montclair, NJ – after living in rental apartments for twentyish years. And for twelve of those twentyish years, we lived in Brooklyn, NY where most apartments range from itsy bitsy teeny weeny to…drumroll please…quite small! At around 900 square feet, our Brooklyn apartment was actually on the relatively spacious end of the rental market, but it was no more than a third of the size of our current house. On top of that, a lot of our furniture was scaled for a much smaller home, so we sold / donated a lot of it before we moved into our house. Not surprisingly, on move-in day, this left us with…you guessed it…one very empty new house.

My kids, currently 10 and 12 years old (6 and 8 when we moved in), were PUMPED. Totally happy to sleep on mattresses on the floor and live out of boxes, they were thrilled beyond belief with four floors (including the finished attic and basement) of wide open spaces just waiting to be converted into meandering box forts and hot wheels tracks.

Me? Not so pumped. In fact, the opposite of pumped. The empty rooms and walls poked at me and taunted me all day everyday (rude), just begging to be filled with pretty things, functional storage, and oh, you know, places to sit down.

But you know what? The experience of furnishing my own first house has helped me to pull together a solid list of pointers for those of you who may find yourselves in a similar position. So, consider these four tips before you start furiously tossing sofas and dining room tables into your online shopping cart. I promise that a bit of planning, preparation, and restraint in the beginning will make the process less crazy-making and the end result a lot more satisfying.

Tip #1. Slow Down!

This one is easily the hardest one for me when I’m working on my own house. Like, I want everything finished and beautiful. Today. But interior design is much like the rest of life in one very important way; rushing is a pretty surefire way to end up stressed, overwhelmed, and saddled with costly mistakes.

You’ll probably be in your house for many years, and you really don’t need to tackle everything all at once, even if it feels like you do. Despite what HGTV has led us all to believe, I think this is especially important when it comes to renovations. With the exception of extreme fixer uppers that are unsafe, unsanitary, or otherwise unlivable, it’s not a bad idea to live in a new house for a while before you make any really big changes. Developing a first hand sense of traffic flow patterns and the way you use spaces can only make any renovations better in the end.

After living in our house for several years, we’re finally about to begin a kitchen renovation. (We have an October start date!!!!! Yay!!!) Our kitchen was such a sad, drab space when moved in, and had it been within our financial means to undertake a renovation immediately, I might have violated my own advice and taken the plunge. BUT, I’m really glad I didn’t. Living with the kitchen for over four years has shown me how I use the space, what I hate about it (inadequate cabinet space and…uh…pretty much every finish and material choice), and what actually works pretty well (the overall layout isn’t terrible). Without that lived experience, I’d really just be relying on general best practices for the re-design. That’s not a bad starting point, but when you’re heading into a costly renovation, there’s just no substitute for intimate firsthand knowledge of a space. When I’m working with a client, I always start with questions like, “How do you use this space? What functions well? What could function better?” Having answers to these questions can be the difference between a good design and a great design.

Tip #2: Take Stock of Your Priorities

So, after taking a deep breath and reminding yourself that you really don’t have to furnish every room and fill every wall in the first month or six, the next step is to take some time to figure out what your priorities are.

My big priority was the living room, and I think this is a common one. Having a common area where everyone can hang out together is important to me. Also, just as importantly, we needed a place to sit our rear ends, so a new sofa was a pretty immediate need. I’m sure anyone who’s tried to relax on patio furniture in their living room for months on end can relate. Fun times!

Think about what you really need, and what it’s going to take to make your new house feel like home. Are you a person who feels most at home when you’re entertaining family and friends? If so, maybe the living room and dining room are the best places to start. Or, are you an introvert who feels most at home when you’re curled up in bed with a book or on a streaming binge? Then maybe you want to start with your bedroom. Kids having a hard time with the move? Consider starting with their bedrooms as a way to make them feel prioritized and important. There’s really no wrong answer, but taking time for this little mental exercise can help you channel your energy in a way that will give you the biggest bang for your (literal and metaphorical) buck.

Tip #3. Start with the Big Picture in Mind

OK, this is a very important one, and I think it’s one of the things that people struggle with the most when confronted with an upsized space. As you shop online from the patio chair in your otherwise empty living room, you might be very tempted to buy the first non-ugly sofa you see. DON’T DO IT! I get the urge. I really do. But, I promise you’ll be happier in the end if you pump the breaks and zoom out a little. Because once you have that non-ugly sofa, it’s going to influence the direction of the rest of the room, and, you know, maybe you want to set the bar a little higher than non-ugly? I think yes. We can do much better than non-ugly!

Don’t box yourself in by pulling the trigger too quickly in a moment of desperation. Before you start randomly buying furniture for a space, carve out some time to come up with an overall vision. Think about how you’re going to use the space and what you want it to feel like. Do you want it to be cozy? Calming? Energizing? What’s your emotional goal for the space? These are the kinds of questions I always start with when I’m working with clients, so this is something you’ll want to think about even if you decide to hire a designer to do the heavy lifting.

After you’ve answered these big picture questions, think about what pieces, styles, colors, etc. you’ll need to bring your vision to life. Use Pinterest to develop a catalog of ideas, or just take screenshots and paste them on a Google slide to make your own moodboard. You don’t have to be a photoshop wizard to do this. In fact, you don’t need photoshop at all. All you need to be able to do is copy & paste. You can do it. I know you can! Once you’re armed with a roadmap, you’ll be in a much better position to start buying pieces that will make you jump for joy on delivery day.

Tip #4. Measure, Measure, and Measure Again

Finally, I can’t stress how important it is to measure your spaces before you buy new furniture. This is important for anyone who’s buying a piece of furniture, new house or not, but pesky little details like measurements can get lost in the shuffle of a move and a new house, so it’s worth stressing here.

The tape measure is your best friend. (I also really love this laser tape measure - game changer.) It has the magical ability to prevent you from melting in a puddle of sobbing goo when you’re stuck with a non-returnable, non-refundable sofa that’s too big for your living room or, even worse, too big to fit through your front door. I mean, nightmare!!! This is why I take insanely detailed and thorough measurements when I’m ordering furniture for clients. And don’t just measure the room that the furniture will live in. Measure the entire path from the delivery truck to the final resting spot for the new piece. Make sure you account for door jambs, thresholds, and any other little architectural hindrances that might stand between you and getting that new piece of furniture into its new home.

When I’m measuring a space for a client, I start by making a rough sketch of the perimeter of the room and the delivery path, and I record all of my measurements on the drawing. No artistic skill required. This is just a 2D line drawing of the shape of the room. Doesn’t even need to be to-scale. It’s just a good way to merge a rough visual representation of the room with actual measurements. Or, if you really don’t want to do any drawing, take some photos of the room and delivery path, print them out, and write the measurements down on the printouts.

Once you’ve got your measurements recorded, painter’s tape is another great tool. You can use the tape to map out the positions of the furniture on the floor and make sure that they’ll fit in the space and with each other. Consider traffic flow patterns and remember that the pieces have height too. You can’t really tape out that third dimension, but keep height in mind as you’re walking around the taped out floor plan and make sure you’re not going to bump your shins on anything.

Altogether now!!!

So, to recap, if you’ve just bought a new house and feel like you need to churn out an HGTV worthy reveal by the end of the month, take a deep breath and remember these four tips (as well as the fact that HGTV is in NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM an accurate representation of the timeline, budget, or work involved in a real life design project):

Slow down! Your house isn’t going anywhere and neither are you. You don’t have to do everything at once.
Identify your priorities and start by tackling projects that will make you feel most at home in your new house.
Don’t make impulsive piecemeal furniture purchases. Come up with an overall vision for a space before you start buying.
Measure, measure, and measure again - not just the room that the new piece will go in, but the entire path from the delivery truck to its final home. I repeat, measure, measure, and measure again!

And guess what? If you’re still feeling overwhelmed, I’m here to help! Not everyone wants to spend their evenings and weekends pinning credenzas, dressers, and accent chairs (oh my!…lol). That’s totally ok because I DO! In fact, nothing makes me happier. So if you’d rather outsource the whole process, reach out to schedule a free phone consultation so that we can chat about all your household design woes. I can’t wait to hear from you!

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