Beware of Pretty Things: 4 Reasons I’m Keeping My Ugly, Old Stuff

My living room is furnished with a coffee table and a side table that we had as our family room furniture in the. It's really good, solid furniture and always in style. In the early 80's. I actually sanded both pieces down and refinished them because I liked them so much.

My mother loves antiques, so my bedroom furniture was always old--like 1800's old. But the great thing about pieces like that is the craftsmanship. All you have to do is look at the side of a dresser drawer and see the dove-tail method of assembly and you know you have some good quality furniture.

My stuff has a story to tell. My experiences are built into each scrape, stain, or chip.

Of course those experiences are exactly why my fiance says my stuff is ugly!

I love our old mismatched furniture for its character, its sturdy solid wood, and for the fact that it will never wear out the way newer veneered pieces will. It's paid for, mostly acquired secondhand. Even our kitchen cabinets are old and unfashionable. I agree that new items are very beautiful and tempting, so we usually avoid window shopping.

By not spending to follow styles and fashions, we are debt-free, and that is definitely a better feeling than having fancy new stuff to show off to visitors. I'm sure people think we are really poor, when they see our decor. They can think whatever they like! I hope to refinish some of our furniture, so that it will look a bit better. It's amazing how old wood can be cleaned up and restored...

Linsey,darling, your ugly, old, stuff has a much prettier, french name- antique! I wish I had more ugly, old stuff from my family. You are right, older furniture is much better made, and can so easily be stripped, refinished, re-upholstered. My favorite "ugly old stuff" goes by the name "the hog table" because when my grandmother found it, a man was slaughtering hogs on it. She recognized it as a solid cherry gate leg dining table and bought it for a song. Refinished, it is absolutely gorgeous and is one of my favorite pieces of furniture.

So,when you are ready to get rid of those concert stickers, start by going to the hardware store and purchasing some furniture stripper and have at it!

of the furniture in my house is inherited and I wouldn't change a thing. I have pieces that belonged to my great grandmother, grandmothers, grandfathers, great aunts, great cousins and parents. They are gorgeous and I wouldn't change or exchange them for anything. A new cheaply made dresser cannot be compared to a dresser that belonged to my great grandmother and is mahogany and lovely and reminds me of her.

I have to tell you, I've been a slave to those magazines and stores for too long. I've called quite a few to get OFF their list....I don't need to be spending money that we've worked so hard to save (or more importantly..NOT SPEND!) on things I don't need.

I can look over my past credit card statements and think 'What did I get here?'..or I can look at my free wicker bedroom set in our guest room and be happy to have friends and family who have donated such nice stuff to our first house.

I love this post. Too often I think we are swayed by the beauty of new things, or the desire to impress others, but when we take the time to step back from the situation, as you have, then we realize we don't honestly need anything new at all. I wrote a similar post about my own experience with furniture a few months back. The sentiment is very similar.

For years, I had a horrible nightstand. It was made of particle board and cheap peeling veneer, and it was really ugly. Why did I keep it for so long? Because a replacement would have cost quite a lot, and the ugly one held up my lamp just fine.

Then I married a man who had his own horrible nightstand. They didn't match, but we had only one (regular) income when we first got married, so we didn't have money for new furniture.

A year after that, my dad moved out of his house. He had a set of nightstands that he wasn't going to take with him, and both of us liked them.

Most of our furniture is hand-me-downs from family, pieces that we bought at thrift stores and refinished, and an amazing solid-wood headboard and footboard that I got on eBay for under $300 shipped.

I have bought a few new pieces. However, when I do, I'm willing to spend what it costs to get a quality piece that will last a long time. And if I need something urgently but it doesn't have to last forever, there is always the horror that is the Ikea shopping experience.

There are chairs/sofas that I some day plan to have reupholstered, but not until the rowdy kids are gone. Why would I pay $ to do it and I then have vomit/spit up/scratches, etc., on my new furniture? That would be nuts. I'll wait. I don't want to have to nag, Watch out for the new chair-sofa-bookcase-table.... Having old stuff with kids around gives a certain peace of mind. This does remind me of a story. When a certain sister, whose house looks like it could be featured in House Beautiful, came to visit once she commented on the state of things in my house. She bought something nice/neew for me and said that while it didn't match anything I had, it didn't appear that I cared whether things matched in my house.

I remember as a small child my mother would lament the "old" furniture that we had. When my parents got married (and I came along within the year) they had no money and furnished their home with things from their parents basement.

Well, you know what, those "old" pieces of furniture have been refinished by my mom and are now very valuable antiques. There was some very beautiful furniture under all those layers of ugly paint.

I don't know why you have to call it ugly. You could call it "antique" or even "shabby chic" although I hate that term also.

All of my furniture is second-hand, some of it found on the street. I think it is beautiful. My point is that you shouldn't think of yourself as sacrificing something you want, like "nice" furniture, because you can easily find well-made furniture at thrift stores and on ebay, or inherited, it only takes a little love to make them look great.

Shanel #17 - You do make a valid point.  I agree that having very ugly furniture can detract from living in your home peacefully.  (Which is why I'm 100% for refurnishing and covering things up)  I always love when home decor magazines give you ideas for a facelift rather than reinvesting in new.  (Country Living was good at this before they went under... )

Margaret #23 - No offense on calling them "ugly", but in my case, there are a few pieces that are just that!  I am so excited to finally have some time to refinish the older, more horrid pieces.  Many of them have so much potential (but a few are currently covered in tacky layers of latex paint.)  I guess we should be careful in judging a wonderful piece based on its outside appearance alone. 

Thanks!

Linsey Knerl

It's funny, but I've found over the years that if I really like something, even if I pick it off the curb, it all goes together. It might be a color or shape or time period, but it "works". Even things we purchase second hand (or the two things bought new) are comfortable with one another. Peacefully eclectic is much more fun than matched sets.

I agree whole heartedly about really ugly furniture. I aslo will go without until I can afford what I want. I do have quite a few antique pieces: great grandma's mirrored dresser, grandma's bedroom set. I also have a nightstand my hubby made in 1976 woodshop class. When we were first married and he was finishing up school we could not afford new furniture, and all I waited for was the time I could replace that nightstand. Guess what, I love that thing now. We bought a bedroom set 10 years ago, I made sure it went with the nightstand. The nightstand that came with the set is in our guest bedroom. I guess after 25 years I am attached to it, just like I am to him.

I do have to say, I could never, ever have furniture that was put out on someone's curb left for free. I guess I have a phobia about bugs, smells etc. Sorry, that is too nasty to me. I could never sit on it or lay on it. I have a friend who does this and if I go to her house I sit on the floor.

I guess when people say curbside I think of stuff that has been sitting in the rain that has been put out for garbage pickup. I do have allergies and molds are a killer.

You are right with most wood items, they can be stripped, sanded and stained. I did have an old chest of drawers once that I had inherited and had to get rid of. They had used mothballs in it. I tried every concoction known to man to get rid of the smell and it still reeked. But for the most part good, sturdy wooden items are salvageable.

I have young kids (1 and 4), and I love my hand-me-down furniture right now because it's OK if it gets destroyed. Sure, I'm less than thrilled when my son colors the sofa cushions with a dry-erase marker...but they're so stained and faded anyway, I just flipped them over and called it a day.

When my kids get older, however -- and we've got our debt paid off (last payment is planned for Dec 1 2009!) -- I do plan to replace the furniture we've got. I'm not the most fashionable or stylish person in the world, and I do have some pieces I really love. But the furniture I have is all someone else's style...some of it is fussy and Victorian, others are modern and streamlined. They don't match each other and they don't match my lifestyle, so when I can afford to replace them, they're gone.

So I plan to keep some of the really precious pieces -- my grandmother's vintage side table where she kept her yarn, my queen bedframe that my parents bought me when I was sixteen -- and gradually replace the rest as I can afford it, with cash.

it comes around in circles. And what's not chic today may very well be tomorrow. Look at all the youth who weren't alive in the 70s, yet who shop at Value Village or Hot Topic to appropriate those styles. The same is true for non-clothes stuff which isn't so portable... like your furniture.

If your friends pressure you to get rid of something which is fully functional and serves its purpose without inducing health hazards (e.g., a 100-year old chair full of splinters), then these are apparently not the sagest friends to have when it comes to making something last and saving your nickels.

Thankyou for sharing, Linsey!

I have a dresser that my boyfriends parents were just going to put on the curb because they had two kids moving out and no need for it anymore. When I started stripping it, I found out this thing had at least 6 coats of paint on it. My boyfriend kept saying "I remember when it was yellow" and "It was pink when my sister had it" until there were layers of paint even he couldn't remember. Once I got it down to the wood, I sanded it and painted it with a beautiful cherrywood finish. It is the most beautiful dresser I own.

My wife and I went out shopping for a desk a few months ago. She wanted to go to IKA and several other stores. It took a bit of energy but I convinced her to let us stop at the local Goodwill first. We found a nice cherry wood desk with every joint dovetailed and handcrafted. We didn't buy it. First we went to the other stores to see what they had. Every desk in IKA was made of poor quality wood and one comparable, in style alone, to the Goodwill desk was over $350. We went back to GW and bought the desk for only a mere $25. It was way nicer than anything we saw that day. I have my wife convinced, I'm the bargain hunter.

We bought a $1500 entertainment center when we first graduated college, it was our "Congrats to us, we have real jobs and can afford real furniture" present. Well, 6 years and 3 kids later, it looks like we got it off the curb! Between dings, fingerprints, crayon and permanent marker, it just looks horrid! But since it's particle board, we can't even refinish it. That $1500 would have been better spent getting my husband a woodworking bench so he could have made us one that we could at least paint or refinish after a few years of kid abuse!!

We learned our lesson though, our oldest daughter is ready to move into a loft bed with her sister underneath. We spent $200 on lumber and supplies, and are almost done with it! And it's much sturdier than all of the bunk beds we looked at for $500 or more! Give me handmade furniture any day over just about anything else! And the two nightstands we bought at a craft fair from an Amish man for $80 each, they don't show a scratch!

Try searching the web for the free online video named "The Story of Stuff". I feel that it fits in very well with this post. One of the points made in the video is that since shortly after WWII, manufacturers have greatly pushed both planned and perceived obsolescence with their products. That's to say that they have been increasingly building furniture, appliances, etc. to wear out quickly (yet slowly enough that most people see no fault in buying new ones) and, through advertising, pushing this "gotta have new" feeling in people to keep money rolling in through "growth economy" ideals.

"Old" and "ugly" are often as much figments of our imagination and of advertising as they are of actual age. Don't let yourself be fooled! There's a good reason that that "old" furniture has lasted this long. It was built to last!

As young newlyweds in 1981-82, we had a mattress, card table and 4 folding chairs. Our first Thanksgiving together, my parents came for the long weekend, and my folks gave us $500 to buy something more suitable for houseguests! We went down to the "antique store" -- a polite way to say used old brown furniture no longer fashionable -- and bought a lovely 1920s Duncan Phyfe dining room set with buffett, table & 4 chairs, a sofa and 2 classic side chairs, side tables, etc. etc. A few years later we lived in St. Louis and had a strict rule: no purchase over $25.00 for any household item. We stripped and refinished, recovered and sewed, and saved lots of money while having very nice furniture. I still have many of the pieces, and have sold or given many away over the years due to changing space, needs and so on. At age 46, I did buy a brand new sofa and a brand new chair & ottoman! But I cherish my old stuff for many of the reasons noted above -- well built, carefully crafted, I'm unable to afford the same quality new, and perhaps most importantly, the treasured memories accumulated in these old things.

Once the kids scorn Crayola, start trading up, one moving sale at a time. Go for good antiques at reasonable prices or for classic reproductions with no particle board anywhere in them and with mortised or dovetailed joints instead of staples.

On second thought, if your family has secure employment, buy it soon. Financially distressed families are selling stuff cheap so they can relocate or make house payments. Be picky and cheap but don't bargain down folks in trouble--just say that the item does not fit your budget.

Replace one item, then sell the old one. Someone will pay you something for any furniture that is not made of particle board.
If you are in healthy financial shape, you may want to give the old furniture to people graduating from a recovery program, to battered women's shelters, or merely put a "Free" sign on it and stack it by the sidewalk.

I love my old stuff. I chose it carefully from antique stores, thrift stores, yard sales, and some from the street side while waiting for the trash truck. Some of it is new only because my home flooding in Katrina and necessity forced me to purchase some new furniture, but I also learned to appreciate the practicality of the well built, recycled piece.

Hey Lindsey,

It's so scary how many of my coaching clients have a hart time not having the nicest or newest furniture.

The ones who find it the hardest are those who've just bought a new house. The house is shiny and new and they feel everything else should be too.

My pearents on the other hand, and many others of their generation, still have my grandmother's reapolstered furniture.

Thanks Lindsey,

Guy