Following on from my recent post ‘Budget details for a family home renovation’, I thought I would share the cost breakdown of what we’ve spent to furnish our home. We moved from a small two bed terrace to a three bed semi-detached house and needed quite a few new bits to finish it off after the renovation.

In the past, our homes have been furnished with a mix of hand-me-downs, auction purchases, furniture from my childhood bedroom, charity shop items - anything we could get at the cheapest possible price. Whilst that totally worked for us at the time (and was our only option), many of these items had seen better days or didn’t quite fit with the new aesthetic of the house.

Thankfully, we had a decent amount of money in the pot after the sale of our old house, but we knew that needed to stretch across the whole renovation plus all the finishing touches. I shopped around a lot, bought second hand, waited for sales and upcycled what I could to ensure we still kept within our budget.

As I stated in the first part of this budget breakdown series, I absolutely appreciate that budget is completely relative to each and every circumstance. If reading this makes you come out in a financial sweat, I totally understand. In fact, I have a good blog post I wrote a while ago on ‘How to furnish your home on a low or non-existent budget’, which you might find helpful. Or you might read this and think we’re total cheapskates - which is totally fine too!! Whichever way it lands with you, I hope you find the transparency helpful.

Furthermore, due to the audience I have spent five years growing over on Instagram, I have been blessed with quite a few gifted items for our home. I will include all those items, clearly marked, and include the total costs that we paid, and the total costs if we had had to pay for the gifted items too. I think it is so important that content creators are transparent about this as I know the majority of you will not have this financial help when furnishing your own homes.

Whilst we’re on the topic of gifting, I also wanted to add a little reminder that the items are just a business exchange for the work content creators put in. I am fully aware the work I do is not saving any lives (believe me, my brother works at the top of the NHS and makes five or six life or death decisions every day so I really don’t need any reminders about the superficiality of my job,) but there is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes and I’d like to think that I also provide enough unpaid content which helps inspire you with your renovation or interior needs.

Anyway, here is the breakdown of what we paid to furnish this home. I am not including the cost of items that we brought with us from our old home because, if you are at a similar stage to us, (where you are furnishing a three bed home), I expect you would probably own a few items already that will get you started on furnishing your home.

Living Room/Dining Room

Green Velvet Armchair, Facebook Marketplace: £200

Mustard Sofa, Swoon Editions: £800

Grey Sofa, Made: From old house (paid £400)

Rug (affiliate link), La Redoute: £99

Shutters, California Shutters: Gifted (would cost you £716)

Ceiling light shades x2, Habitat: £144

Dining table, bought at auction: From old house (paid £140)

Dining chairs x5, IKEA: £350

Highchair, IKEA: £13

Large sideboard, Facebook Marketplace: £200

Armchair, charity shop: From old house (paid £10)

Side table (affiliate link), La Redoute: £78

Kid kitchen, IKEA (upcycled): From old house (paid £60)

Pink Pouff, Bombay Duck: Gifted (would cost you £115)

Floor Light, Made: From old house (birthday present from my in-laws, would cost you £99)

Neon Dream Light, Notonthehighstreet: Gifted (would cost you £40)

Anglepoise Light, Anglepoise/Heals: Gifted (would cost you £175)

Pink velvet stool with storage (affiliate link), Dunelm: Gifted for magazine shoot (would cost you £49)

Side table, an old oranges storage crate from my parents house: Free

The Frame TV, Samsung at John Lewis: £799

Total cost for us: £2683

Total cost including paying for gifted items: £3778

Kitchen and Utility

Wall light, Spark and Bell: £79

Kettle, Breville (affiliate link): £36

Toaster, Morphy Richards (affiliate link): £46

Weighing scales, eBay: £10

Hooks behind door, H&M Home (affiliate link): £4

Pegboard, eBay: £15

Ceiling light, Made: £35

Curtain, made by myself: £15

Shelf, made from a bit of wood found in the garage: £4 (for brackets)

Microwave, Daewoo: £90

Fridge/Freezer, Beko: £229

Total cost for us: £559

Total cost including paying for gifted items: £559

Downstairs Toilet

Mirror (affiliate link), Dunelm: Gifted (would cost you £25)

Cabinet, already in the house but upcycled with paint and rattan: £30

Ceiling light, Scandinavian Design Centre: £39

Total cost for us: £69

Total cost including paying for gifted items: £94

Hallway

Rattan peacock chair, Facebook Marketplace: £30

Shelf and brackets, eBay: £40

Peg rail shelf, made by a friend: From old house

Yellow chest of drawers, Maisons Du Monde: £194

Door mat, Bombay Duck: Gifted (would cost you £20)

Total cost for us: £264

Total cost including paying for gifted items: £284

Landing

Ceiling Light, BHS: £100

Laundry basket, charity shop: From old house (£5)

Rug, Habitat: From old house (paid £50)

Black-Out Blind, eBay: £21

Total cost for us: £121

Total cost including paying for gifted items: £121

Bathroom

Shower curtain, Urban Outfitters US: £80 (plus £20 customs - really hoping my husband doesn’t read this!)

Toy storage crates x3, This Modern Life: £15

Bathmat, Primark: £8

Ceiling Light, IKEA: From old house

Peg rail shelf, upcycled: From old house

Step stool (affiliate link), Kidly: £30

Total cost for us: £153

Total cost including paying for gifted items: £153

Main Bedroom

King size bed, Maisons Du Monde: £745

Slats for bed, The Bed Slats Company: £107

Mattress, IKEA: £150

Bed side tables x2, Maisons Du Monde: Gifted (would cost you £174)

Picture shelf single, painted same colour as wardrobes, IKEA: £9

Picture shelves in corner, IKEA: £12

Small side board, Cotswold Co: Gifted (would cost you £199)

Circular rug, Cotswold Co: Gifted (would cost you £149)

Hooks on wall, H&M Home (affiliate link): £9

Mirror, eBay: £100

Black out blind, eBay: £38

Ceiling Light, Habitat: £32

Bedside table lamps x2, Homebase (affiliate link): £25 (one bought at discount as scratched)

Total cost for us: £1224

Total cost including paying for gifted items: £1746

Girls’ shared bedroom:

House bunk bed, House about Kids: Bought with 50% press discount (would cost you £450)

Rug (affiliate link), La Redoute: £162

Small cupboard, from local vintage shop: £30

Bench with storage, from local vintage shop: £80

Ply cupboard (affiliate link), Notonthehighstreet/UrbanSize: Gifted (would cost you £385)

Black out Blinds x3, eBay: £80

Magazine rack, from local vintage shop: £8

Ceiling light, Habitat: £60

Total cost for us: £645

Total cost including paying for gifted items: £1255

Nursery

Cot, IKEA: £40

Chest of drawers, bought at auction: From old home (paid £60)

Solar system mobile, Alice in Scandiland Shop: Present from my parents as a welcome to the family gift for our new baby

Book shelves x2, The Great Little Trading Co: From old home (present from my parents to girls)

Ceiling Light, Habitat: £31.50

Rug, Amazon (affiliate link): £22

Black wire shelves, Cotswold Co: Gifted (would cost you £40)

Black-out blind, eBay: £25

Mattress, IKEA: £70

Total cost for us: £226.50

Total cost including paying for gifted items: £266.50

Overall Total: £5944.50

Overall Total including paying for gifted items: £8256.50

I hope that round-up was helpful and gives you an idea of the costs you may incur if furnishing a new home. One thing worth noting is that we sold any old furniture that didn’t work for us in this space to help fund the purchase of new items. From lights, shelving and chest of drawers to leftover tiles and bedside tables, I used platforms like Instagram and Facebook Marketplace to ensure nothing went to landfill and we had funds to put towards something new. In fact, if you buy well, you may even make a profit like we did on our old double bed frame, which we bought for £18 at auction, used for 6 years and then sold for £100!

When buying new, I made use of big sales like Black Friday. I had a spreadsheet of all the items we needed (rugs, bedlinen, sofa etc - things that are harder to find second hand) which I spent time researching in the weeks running up to November. Then when the big sales hit, I could just click through the links and see which items had been reduced. This meant I avoided scrolling through the overwhelming amount of Black Friday sales, only purchased what we needed and didn’t get enticed into buying anything unnecessary.

Here are a few blog posts that you may find helpful if you’re looking to furnish your home on a budget: