I recently staged a vacant Circa 1600's house on the North Shore of Long Island. Although I worked up a detailed proposal for rental furniture befitting that style of home, the owner/investor opted to purchase the furniture instead of paying the approximately $1200 per month rental fees for living room, bedroom, kitchen and library furniture. I must tell you that I was somewhat skeptical as to what it would cost to buy all of that furniture, but I had a rare afternoon of ‘freedom' and was excited to see if we could pull this off!
The client and I went to a long ‘corridor' of furniture stores which is located here on Long Island. We began our search at "Raymour and Flanagans", but found that the furniture on display was not appropriate for this type of home and it was a little 'pricey'. We went to Bob's Discount Furniture and ‘hit a home run'! We found an 8 piece bedroom set complete with queen sized sleigh bed for $999; a 7 piece living room ensemble (with 2 Tiffany-styled lamps) for $1499, and a kitchen table (marble and glass) with 4 wrought iron chairs for $499. All that we needed was a loveseat and chair for the library.
While my client was handling the financial and delivery portion of the sale, I went out to other stores in search of an appropriate loveseat and upholstered chair. It was quite by accident that I discovered a perfect chair as I was leaving the first store. It was marked down to $399, it was striped and I loved it! I made a note of the style number and price and drove to a furniture store called "The Place". I was approached by a saleswoman who proved to be very helpful in narrowing down the choices to those items that fit my needs. I don't think that it took more than 5 minutes to find exactly what I was looking for. I called my client who had just left "Bob's" and asked him to come over and look at the loveseat.
When my client saw the loveseat, he eagerly approved and paid the $379 that it was marked down to. Since the ensemble contained 2 striped pillows that looked very much like the fabric of that $399 chair, I asked if we could take one of the pillows with us. The saleslady said that it would be fine, and when the order paperwork was complete, the client and I drove over to the store where I had discovered the chair. As soon as we walked in, I could see that it was a perfect match, and so that became the final purchase of the day.
All totaled, with delivery and tax, my client spent approximately $4500 and the furniture is his to use in other houses. It took us about 2 hours to chose and buy all of the furniture.
Since my design tastes always ran toward traditional, I had plenty of accessories of my own that would be perfect for this house. I also had 8 chairs that I ‘rescued' from a Chinese Restaurant that was being demolished. Once they were reconditioned and recovered, they were just what I needed for the dining room. There was only one ‘glitch' with the newly purchased furnishings and that was because the doorway to the library was very narrow and the loveseat would not fit through it. I had an antique loveseat in my possession that I no longer use, and even though it wasn't what I originally wanted in that room, it still worked AND it fit through the doorway! We actually ended up using the loveseat in a ‘family room' located off the kitchen. It was never my intention to stage that room, however once the loveseat was placed there, I just had to give the room a complete staging! I needed to ‘borrow' quite a few things from my own home, but the room really came together and actually became one of my favorite rooms in the house!
Here are some Before and After photos - the last picture is from the 'family room':
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