So, you’ve been reading my blogs and now you want to know about the girl behind the blog. Well, you’re in luck. For the first time, I’ll be using the furniture and interior design knowledge that I’ve gained during my time at EZ Living Furniture for my own personal journey. That’s right, the tips I share with my readers every week are something that I can soon make use of. Finally, my time has come! In this blog, I’ll be giving you unfiltered access to my world and hopefully some insight into how I am preparing to become a homeowner (with fabulous furniture)!
Mortgage Approval At Last
Many years of sacrificing and saving whenever and wherever I could seemed to finally pay off when my partner and I received word that we had been approved for a mortgage. With mortgage approval in tow, we felt like we were on top of the world, for a little while at least. I’m not sure why but I foolishly assumed that the application process was going to be the most stressful part of the home-buying journey, now that I am further along, I know this to be untrue, but ignorance is bliss as they say.
To give you a quick insight, the last few months have been filled with phone calls to estate agents, arranging house appointments, and trying to rearrange work in order to attend open viewings at difficult times. Why, oh why can’t they organise them for Saturdays and Sundays?
I won’t lie, It’s been tough, and I may have even sustained physical injuries from this experience because I’ve been practically knocking people over to get through the door first at open viewings. I have also adopted a technique of loudly announcing that there are multiple problems with the house in order to put other potential buyers off - FYI this doesn’t work by the way. Still, I’m hopeful that it will all be worth it in the end when I step foot inside my first (and possibly forever) home.
Renting Is Only Temporary, Isn’t It?
Back to renting though, I’m not sure if anyone else can relate, but I’ve been leasing for eight long years. Of course, when my partner and I first moved in, neither of us believed that it would be almost a decade before we could call a house a home. So, in theory, renting always felt temporary and we didn’t feel the need to decorate or accessorise to our liking because we thought we wouldn’t be staying for too long. So, we continued to use our rented furniture and because of this, our apartment remained just as bland as it had been when we first moved in.
Now of course, when I look back, I wish I’d personalised my apartment from the very beginning and made it a real home. I have since gained a significant amount of interior experience working with EZ Living Furniture, so I now know that I could have used small accessories to reflect my personality on my blank canvas rental. Home accessories are relatively inexpensive and would have given me the opportunity to discover and understand my individual interior style without breaking the bank or making any big financial styling mistakes.
EZ TIP: Use your rental to understand your interior style, play around with different accessories and colours and once you have decided on what you love, you then have the opportunity to bring this with you to your own home. This will save you time and money in the long run.
It’s Going To Cost How Much?
The whole process of buying a house is costly, we knew this, we know this, and had prepared (somewhat) for it, but what we hadn’t considered was all of the “extra costs”. Looking back now, all of these things weren’t actually extras, they were essentials, but I think at the time I just thought if we could get a house, we’d figure everything else out afterwards. What we didn’t consider though was how we would wash our clothes without a washing machine, how we’d keep our food fresh without a fridge, how we’d cook without an oven, how we’d eat our dinner without a dining table, how we’d watch TV without a sofa, and how we would sleep without a bed frame and mattress. So, to lower some of the initial costs that come with buying a home, I made the decision to invest in some of those furniture items now while I am still renting and then bring them with me to the new house.
Some Things Are Worth Investing In
The motto I live by is “Why pay more when you don’t have to”. Maybe it was the way I was raised, maybe not, but this attitude has followed me throughout my adult years. I’m a bargain queen and shop preowned whenever possible. I wait for sales, watch items until they have lowered in price, and will delay my purchasing for promotional codes. I like to think that I have lived quite well on yellow reduced stickers and charity shop finds until now. In all honesty, I get quite a thrill knowing that I have saved money and how much the item in question would have cost me if I had purchased it brand new. I regularly pour over preowned websites and before starting at EZ Living Furniture believed I could just buy all of my furniture second-hand. Now, after gaining an incredible amount of insider knowledge in the furniture industry, I know that there are some items you simply can’t buy preowned. And if you really don’t want to pay full price for new furniture, there are other ways of getting it for less including using the EZ Living Outlet Store which stocks slightly imperfect furniture at a reduced price year-round.
Buy Now To Save Later
As previously mentioned, renting is the perfect time to start investing in soft furnishings to lower some of the initial costs. These don’t consume a lot of space and can be easily taken with you.
Furniture is a little trickier to buy when you are still renting, especially if your leased house or apartment happens to be on the smaller side. However, it’s not impossible. If your rental comes with furniture and happens to have a storage facility, which fortunately, ours does, you can ask to store the rented furnishings in there. It’s always worth asking your management agency or landlord if this is a possibility. This will leave you with enough available space in your rental to accommodate the new furnishings below, which is exactly what we did!
To understand exactly what furniture you should buy now, I have put together a list below. This list has been carefully curated using the knowledge I have gained from EZ Living Furniture experts. I have spent a great deal of time learning from them and understanding the ins and outs of all pieces. From that experience, I have come to realise that these 4 items are worth the investment and could easily be purchased now and brought with you.
The 4 most important furniture investments while renting are as follows:
- Mattress
- Bed Frame
- Sofa/ Sofa Bed
- Table
Each of these items will last you years if you look after them. And if you really think about it, you could potentially live without everything else or buy second-hand, if you absolutely had to for a short while.
So, What Did We Buy?
To get the most value out of your purchases, you should always look for multifunctional items which is exactly what we did. They can serve multiple purposes and will save you money in the future.
- First, we bought the Nevada Sofa Bed from EZ Living Furniture.
We made the decision to purchase a sofa bed first. We argued that it would be a great investment because it could be used to relax on and if we didn’t get around to purchasing a mattress or bed frame for the new home straight away, we could also sleep on it and use this as our main bed for the short term.
Have you ever heard that saying “buy cheap, buy twice”? Scandinavian furniture was tempting, but we ultimately ruled this out. We wanted something that we knew would stand the test of time which is why we bought our sofa bed from EZ Living Furniture.
- We then bought the Rivoli Coffee Table.
We looked at tables because we knew we needed a surface of some sort to eat meals off of etc. The size of the dining table that we would ideally want for our new home, wouldn’t fit in our apartment, so we decided against a dining table for now and instead opted for a coffee table with multiple uses.
We purchased the Rivoli Coffee Table from EZ Living Furniture because it was multi-functional. It’s a coffee table, desk, and make-shift dining table all in one. While the Rivoli is no longer available, the Ezra is a similar alternative.
These purchases have been invaluable in our apartment over the last couple of months. I have already had guests over to test out the sofa bed and we extend our coffee table every day for tea and biscuits.
We still have more items to buy, but at least with some of the moving-in costs eliminated, we can rest a little easier when we do eventually find that “dream home”.
What’s Next?
We still have a lot more house viewing to do, but in the meantime, I am going to spend the majority of my spare time shopping for the perfect mattress and bed frame to bring with me to my new home.
Follow me on my journey next month when I discuss the ups and downs of house bidding.
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Disclaimer:
As a blogger working for EZ Living Furniture, most, if not all of the products I buy are from EZ Living Furniture. Despite any receipt of compensation, I will only recommend products that I deem worthy of endorsement and that I have personal experience with or have advanced knowledge of.
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