This is a topic that has been on my mind a lot recently (read: since last July) after moving into the new house. Side-note, when does it stop becoming appropriate to say new house? Maybe new-ish is more fitting at this point. Anyway. Sometimes when you move into a new space, I feel like there are items that you know for sure you’re not going to bring with you. Maybe they are too old/outdated, something your parents or in-laws gave you when you first got your own place and you didn’t have money to spend on furniture, or maybe your personal taste and style has changed. But then there are the pieces that you really like and worked well in your current home so you bring them with you to the new space. In this blog post we’re going to be talking about those pieces.

Over the last 10 months, I’ve found that there are like 4 types of categories for these pieces of furniture:

A) Furniture from your previous space that you love and will work with the new space’s layout, design, etc.
B) Furniture from your previous space that you love and you want to make it work with your current space but you know long term the size, design, etc. probably isn’t the best fit.
C) Furniture from your previous space that you love but there’s just literally no where to put it that works from a design (or functional) standpoint.
D) Pieces that you aren’t necessarily crazy about but they are functional for the time being until you can replace it with something more your style/taste.

I feel like once you can determine what category a piece of furniture fits into, it becomes a lot easier to decide what to keep permanently, for the time being until you can replace it, or what you should just go ahead and sell or donate. Keep it mind, sometimes it takes monthsss to figure this out.

So let’s take our living room for example. When we moved into the house, I knew that everything from our old living room had to come with us from purely a functional standpoint, ie. we legit needed furniture to fill the space and to sit on LOL. So we have our sectional sofa, coffee table, and leather chair. I’ve known from the beginning that I’ve wanted to replace the sofa and coffee table but I love the leather chair. The sofa and coffee table fall into category D, and I was hoping that the leather chair would fall into category A. But as I’ve planned out the living room more in my head from a design standpoint, with our new (larger) sectional, the leather chair probably won’t work in the living room. But since I love it, I try to think– is there any other room in the house that it would be fitting? The answer is probably not. So, I know that eventually it may fall into category B 🙁 but I’ll make that final call once the new sofa actually arrives lol.

Some other spaces are a little tricker because furniture from one room in the old space doesn’t necessarily need (or work) to go in the same room in the new space. For example, in our old dining room we had this table, mirror, and gallery wall of photos. Based on the layout and set up of the dining room in the new house, these pieces wouldn’t really work in there. So then, I started to think, can these pieces be used somewhere else or do I need to sell them? We immediately put the gold and glass table in my office as more of a place to put our router, google nest, etc. And the other items like the mirror and gallery photos just sat in an empty bedroom. After taking some time (months) to plan the layout and furniture for my office, I decided that the mirror would work great over the sideboard, and the gallery wall would work great on the wall behind my desk/computer (category A). And as far as the glass table goes, it started off in category A, but I ended up ordering a tall black cabinet to replace it. I felt the cabinet’s shape worked better aesthetically and would also do a better job at hiding cords, the router etc. So once that arrives, I’ll have to reassess whether the glass table falls into category B or C.

Hopefully those categories and examples helped and I didn’t make it even more confusing on what you should do with your furniture lol. But just know that as nice as it is to have a space “done”, it’s more than okay to take your time in deciding what you want your new space to look like, and what will and won’t work. It’s better to be really intentional and end up creating a space you love over time versus ordering a bunch of furniture right away and a year later realizing that you don’t love how it turned out. Not to mention, (quality) furniture can be expensive and can add up quickly when you’re furnishing a room let alone a whole house! I know for us personally, even if I knew what furniture I wanted in every room, it wouldn’t be smart financially to try and buy everything at once. I also bring this up because I feel like on social media it can feel very normal to move into a new space and everything looks perfectly done within a month or so. That may be realistic for some people but that is definitely not the norm, so don’t feel pressure to “compete” with that!

Alright guys, I think that about wraps this up! Hope this was helpful 🙂