# Your new furniture purchases thru the years **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 29, 2026, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463 "2026-09-29T13:03:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/1 "2026-09-29T13:03:59Z")
Do you remember the first new piece of furniture you bought? And today, what is the oldest that you still have that you bought new? And the newest new-bought item(s)? Hand-me-downs don’t count. Thrift store finds don’t count. Antiques don’t count. Just things you bought new from a store or someone who built it for you. When I got my first apartment in 1975, I went to an unfinished furniture store and bought a pine rocker. I stained it a dark color and used it for many years. But for the life of me, I don’t recall if I gave it to someone or donated it to a thrift store. The oldest I have now is either my piano (purchased in 1976/77) or if it doesn’t count as furniture, then it’s the bedroom set I bought in 1983 - headboard, chest, dresser, 2 night stands. We use all but the headboard, which is for a queen bed, and we have a king. I can’t see us replacing it - other than a few cosmetic dings, it’s a good, solid set. The latest bought-new items are our living room sofa and 2 recliners - bought during Covid, so we had to wait for it all to be built and delivered. They’re all from La-Z-Boy and I’ve decided I hate powered recliners. I was reclined when we lost power one evening - that was a graceful dismount on my part. Plus it takes an annoying amount of time to go from recline to upright - especially annoying when one needs an immediate visit to the facilities. (I’m old - it happens!!) Your turn! ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/2 "2026-09-29T13:36:32Z")
We also bought a La-Z Boy sofa which we’re still using although it’s on its last legs — it’s semi- circular! Our powered recliner has a battery backup for power outages; seriously, four 9-volt batts clamped into a harness. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/3 "2026-09-29T14:07:34Z")
First new furniture would probably be baby’s crib, rocker/glider then other kids furniture, bunks beds with trundle then a combo dresser, desk with sleeping loft. Only have the rocker/glider. But back when W was potus, and sent everyone stimulus bucks we bought new sofas. Without a guest room available we needed something versatile for when we had visitors. Still have them. [Eilersen](https://eilersen.eu/products/sofas/playground/) ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/4 "2026-09-29T14:11:02Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > And today, what is the oldest that you still have that you bought new? And the newest new-bought item(s)? Well, I had my own private “urban renewal” over the past year. I got a new dining room set, a new couch/love seat set, a new TV stand that can accomodate a 65 inch TV, new end tables for the living room, and a new desk for my office. My bedroom is still the same in regards to furniture, but I just recently got 4 new sets of high quality sheets, a new mattress cover, and a new comforter, The stuff I had was many years old and worn, and it was simply time. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/5 "2026-09-29T14:21:18Z")
We started out our married life with furniture hand me downs, which we had for many years. The first new item we bough was a sectional couch about 6 years into our marriage. I remember being worried about spending the money on it. The oldest piece of furniture that we bought new and still have is a sofa and love seat set that we bought for our “extra” living room when we bought our current house 28 years ago. It’s a dated floral print (UGH) that I have covered, but it’s in great condition because we hardly every use that room. It’s basically used as an over flow room when we have a big get together. There are also 2 wing-backed chairs in that room that we bought at the same time. Our newest item is a sectional couch that we bought last November. I have yet to sit on it in all it’s new glory, because it has been shrouded with couch covers from day one because of the dogs. When I change the covers to wash, I admire it and might even sit on it for a few seconds. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/6 "2026-09-29T14:24:18Z")
I don’t recall ever buying (or scrounging) a piece of used furniture. My current small apartment has all new everything from 2024, plus one stand-up desk & matching filing cabinet from 2022 (Uplift is great stuff!), and one barstool from two furniture generations ago, bought new in ~2001 that’s beginning to show age, not wear. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/7 "2026-09-29T14:25:57Z")
When I finally started making real money in 1988 I went out and bought a new sectional sofa, a sofa with fold out bed, a fancy lamp set up that overhang the sectional, a large painting and one of those big screen box like TV (may 56 inch). And a king sized water bed. My friends were impressed, which now I could cere less about that type of thing. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/8 "2026-09-29T14:31:09Z")
Never bought any. ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/9 "2026-09-29T14:41:10Z")
We’ve bought very little “new” furniture in the 53 years we’ve been married. The first new piece of furniture we bought when we were first married was a sofa that unfolded into a bed. It weighed a ton and was somewhat impractical, and we replaced that in the 1980s with a very nice new love seat, which we still have. It’s in the living room and largely unused by anyone other than occasional visitors and the cats. When we bought the house we purchased two new La-Z-Boy recliners for the TV room, still in use after 15 years. We probably haven’t bought any furniture new since then, unless you count IKEA bookcases and cabinets. We have lots of those. I don’t much think of IKEA as “furniture” though. We have many pieces of antique furniture we’ve inherited over the years, more of those than anything, some of it more than a hundred years old. They’re sturdy, attractive and well-built. Why replace them? ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/10 "2026-09-29T14:57:55Z")
Same here, we have a mix of oldies but goodies in oak, mahogany, solid pieces from family. Spouse came with modern classics that he bought new from his time at Herman Miller. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/11 "2026-09-29T15:30:50Z")
When I first married my first wife in 1970, we were both bringing in a paycheck. Mine was military and hers was elementary school teaching. Not a huge amount of money, but more than most people we knew were making. When we got into our first Navy housing, we went to Sears and bought a couch, chair, and a corner unit that acted as a second couch (it had a record player built in!), all on credit. We later bought a quarter-round bar with stools and an orange shag carpet. We were the envy of all our friends, some of whom were literally sitting on apple crates. Then a new car. It took us four years to pay off the debt, and we agreed that we would rather go without than ever buy anything on time again, and kept to that notion. I have no memory of what happened to that furniture, but I know it lasted many years. In fact, it was still in use when we divorced some 20 years later. ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/12 "2026-09-29T16:10:09Z")
When I got my first full-time job and apartment, I bought a sofa, dinette set, two end tables and a coffee table. When I got married the sofa and the dinette set went to the St. Vincent de Paul thrift store. We eventually replaced the end tables and coffee table with a new set, which we still have. Mr. romans already had a house and some furniture when we got married and we still have almost all of that furniture, most of which he bought in Hong Kong while he was in the Navy. Very nice quality stuff. I can’t think of anything I still have today that I bought myself pre-marriage, though I do still have an Ethan Allen dresser my parents gave me when I moved out of their house. The first thing we bought together was a sofa that had recliners built into the ends, but eventually it broke and we got rid of it. The newest thing we’ve got is a recliner, to replace mr. romans’ armchair. The seat springs on the chair were giving it up and he was tired of feeling like taco filling. It was over 40 years old and he’d sat in it almost every day for 25 years, so it was bound to happen. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/13 "2026-09-29T16:58:50Z")
Literally all of my furniture is either hand-me-downs, from thrift stores, or from IKEA. So I guess the first thing I ever bought from IKEA counts as my first new furniture purchase. When I first moved to California right after college in 2005 I needed a dining table and chairs. Being just out of college and on a tight budget (I hadn’t even gotten my first paycheck from the job I was about to start), I decided to go to IKEA and buy the cheapest dining set they had. I think it was like $70 for a table and four chairs. IKEA didn’t have a store in the Sacramento area at the time (The one in West Sac opened maybe a year later), so this meant a trip to the Bay Area. But that was ok, as I was new to the area and wanted to explore, and I had never even been to an IKEA before so even that felt kind of like a tourist attraction. As you might expect for that price point, the $70 dining set from IKEA was pretty crappy – picture a piece of plywood with some basic molding around the edges, and metal tubes for legs. The chairs were pretty much the same material, albeit with a little curvature to them. I do still have the table, though. It’s not my main dining table anymore, but it serves as my desk in my makeshift home office that I set up during COVID. Other IKEA purchases over the years would be my current dining set, a much nicer IKEA model, my bed frame, and nightstand. ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/14 "2026-09-29T17:38:14Z")
I don’t remember which was the first purchase, but when I moved to the Big City for my first real job out of college, I bought a bed (mattress, box spring, and frame) and dinette set (table and six chairs) the same day. Purchased the bed from Barker Brothers in Long Beach. I think the dinette came from some place that specialized in Danish furniture but I don’t remember exactly. Forty years later (almost to the day!) I don’t have any of those pieces. I have no idea what we did with the bed, but we gave the dinette set to a good friend when she moved out from her mom’s place and needed furnishings. I think she still has the set. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/15 "2026-09-29T17:51:12Z")
First piece of furniture was a king-sized waterbed, which hubby bought before we got married. When we moved internationally we gave our existing furniture away, so we don’t have anything from before the big move. We actually sold the waterbed, which had a normal mattress at the time, to our realtor. We did bring our speakers with us, but those aren’t really furniture, and they’ve been gone for a while. Last piece of furniture we bought? A bed. The first one we bought here was the local style, and really low. So we bought a different bed, which last quite some years, but then started getting squeaky. We were looking at getting a new mattress but decided to replace the whole thing. Really happy that we did. From the stuff we bought here, the oldest piece is a display cabinet (china closet?) that started out in the living room and now holds camera equipment and guitar cables in hubby’s music room. I think it might have been in the first batch of furniture we bought the day we landed. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/16 "2026-09-29T19:39:33Z")
The first piece of furniture I bought was an office chair for my dorm room desk. The one that was issued was crap. (fast forward 50 some odd years) The last piece of furniture I bought was another chair, this one a gaming chair for my office. The oldest piece of furniture in the house is a pair of bookcases I moved from the old place 10 years ago. Otherwise everything in the house was bought new when we moved. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/17 "2026-09-29T20:09:26Z")
Around 1972 I moved into my first unfurnished apartment, one whole 1 bedroom apartment just for me, and I had to buy furniture for it. I bought a twin extra-long bed frame made of solid wood, which we still have in the guest room. It has storage drawers underneath, which saved me needing to buy a lot of other case goods for the bedroom. For the living room I bought a sofa and chair set, very comfortable as far as I remember, with big rounded arms the same height as the back, so I (a taller person) could comfortably drape my arm over the side as I was sitting in my spot. That lasted a while, but in 1979 I sold or gave it to my sister, who had it for a long time but I don’t think she has it any more. For newest things, I have a La-Z-Boy recliner that’s maybe 3 years old, and I built my own desk that I am currently sitting at out of red oak, maybe 2 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/18 "2026-09-29T20:10:15Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > fast forward 50 some odd years Were all 50 of those years odd? Some of them certainly must have been fairly normal! ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/19 "2026-09-29T20:12:45Z")
Waited too long to edit, but I remembered that the bed was just a mattress/box spring purchase. My parents had a headboard and frame they gave me. It’d been one of my parents’ first purchases as a married couple. They probably got it home by tying it on the back of a dinosaur. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2026, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463/20 "2026-09-29T20:33:51Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I don’t recall ever buying (or scrounging) a piece of used furniture. Ooh, i am very picky about furniture, and they don’t make it like they used to. Well, some of them do, but that’s pricy. The first “new furniture” i bought that i still have is the bed my husband and i shopped for, shortly after we were married. Well, it’s a mattress and box springs, does that count? We eventually bought a really cheap build-it-yourself storage thing to go underneath. But when i get home from vacation, I’m always surprised how comfy the old bed is. The oldest stuff i have is not new, it’s hand-me-downs from my maternal aunt (who had excellent taste in furniture) and my paternal great aunt, who had some pieces her uncle, the cabinet maker, made. And a really nice oak armoire we bought used in some giant warehouse in NYC, when we didn’t have a lot of closets. It now lives in the dining room and holds china and linens. But i still have all the furniture I’ve purchased new. From the bookcases, to a little table next to the bookcases in the library that i had custom-made, to the dining room set, to a set of custom made cabinets in the living room that exactly fit the space between the fireplace and the corner (not symmetric, but really close, so anything in a standard size would look weird) to the recently purchased kitchen table, and the even more recently purchased bentwood kitchen chairs i had custom made. Have a mentioned i like furniture? I have a lot of natural (unstained) cherry furniture. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-new-furniture-purchases-thru-the-years/1033463.md?page=2)