Furnishing the apartment

Or ... not (76)

One of the ways we knew we had the right apartment was we could not stop imagining arranging furniture we didn’t own in a place we hadn’t even put an offer on.

The Approach

We currently live in a furnished apartment. That means that we don't own the bed we sleep on. Or the couch or a table to eat off of or chairs to sit on. So we need a lot. We were thinking hey, let’s get the whole kit and kaboodle now. Get the whole thing furnished in one fell swoop. There’s a lot to recommend that approach. It’s done. It’s going to be easier. This was our first idea. We made our list and headed to our go-to furniture store: IKEA.

Yeah, we’re IKEA people. Putting aside the fact that we like the aesthetic and really don’t care if we walk into someone else’s house and see they have the same piece we have (just proves we have popular taste ;-), is the fact that Scott LOVES putting together IKEA furniture. He’s put together a bedroom for friends before. He’s modified and tricked out a 5 x 5 Kallax.

Sadly, IKEA didn’t ring all our bells. We can probably make it work. The extendable dining table was kinda ugly. The comfortable chair for Amy might be tall enough to block part of the view out the window. And, surprisingly, the total was going to be a tad hefty. After all, we are talking an entire apartment’s worth! If the place wasn’t already a stretch and we had a set budget of 15,000€ for furniture, we’d be a lot more comfortable going the “furniture all at once” route.

An IKEA table. Not our favorite. Seats up to 12, which is terrific. But, it’s boring. And, apparently, rounded corners are bad. It’s also white. Which, in our exceptionally light main room, would be blinding. Image lifted from the IKEA website.

For anyone thinking about furniture - especially furniture all at once - we would be remiss not to mention the wonderful discussion by

Nancy Whiteman

of her experiences at Paços de Ferreira, the town in Portugal that is the furniture capital of Europe. Great for less expensive, quality and custom furniture, Paços de Ferreira is a wonderful resource, and her two posts about it a helpful introduction.

So remembering our aesthetic, and our devotion to frugality, we’ve come to realize the space we are moving into is very different from the one we are leaving. Indeed, very different from any we have lived in before. And the pickier of us (for those of us who don’t know, we are often in complete alignment, with the difference that Amy is more insistent on perfect. As Scott doesn’t care as much, Amy takes lead on things like this.) is also the gardener. As such, each new garden bed started on graph paper with plant circles being moved here and there. A year after the design is locked in and the plants are in, the real gardening begins. Plants are moved within a garden bed or from bed to bed until harmony reigns. In all likelihood, the same will happen with our living/dining/kitchen space/area/thing.

Did our front yard end up looking like this? Not exactly. But it was pretty close. Closer than other first draft plans she’s made. It did take a good five years of living there before she designed the landscape, though. We’d rather not eat off a folding table for five years.

So we are going to start with the essentials: a mattress, a folding table (we’ll need a table in the short term, it will be easy to move as we consider different placements, and it’s final life will be for board game nights), and some chairs. That’s it. The rest will come as we live in the space and see how it goes.

The mattress

Up the street is a mattress store. They sell one kind of mattress. It’s like finding a Sealy store. Looks expensive. We’ve been hunting for the equivalent of a Mattress Firm - a store that sells many brands of mattresses, generally at a relatively affordable price. We did find a place that offers Sealy and Serta and Tempurpedic. Of course when we went they had none of those mattresses. But they did have the brand from the store up the street. Go figure.

On a walk Amy finally caved and went into the nearby mattress store. The lady was nice. They had a Simmons mattress. Who knew? They had the Portuguese knock off variation of it. Wait - this is the less expensive stuff? We tested every mattress they had. And went with the two sided coil mattress. We didn’t know they made mattresses you could flip anymore. Feels nice supporting a Portuguese manufacturer as well.

The Rest

Our homes have always been furnished with family castoffs or things we bought on Craigslist/Facebook Marketplace. Before we left Connecticut on our way to Saint Louis we sold almost everything on Craigslist then scoured the internet for replacements when we arrived. It turned out to be a great way to get to know our new city.

We’re hoping to do the same now. Olx is the craigslist here, and Facebook Marketplace is Facebook Marketplace wherever you go, apparently. The difference here is we’re not arriving for a pickup in a Honda Fit (fits in any space and anything fits inside!) that also had a hitch and tray. Routinely we appeared to dismayed looks and created new converts as we toodled down the driveway, a table and chairs tucked snugly inside our car.

How will we do this here? Do we walk a table and chairs into the metro? Call for an Uber SUV? We’ll be figuring it out, that’s for sure.

The hills will make this method a bit of a challenge. Amy may have to ditch the heels. Image from Shutterstock.

That’s all for now.

Love from Lisbon,

Amy & Scott