Guest Blogger: How to Prep your Old Furniture to Purchase Brand New

Guest Blogger #384, Entry #978, February 26, 2012

Rarely do we wear the same pair of jeans or shoes for 5-10 years, so we certainly shouldn’t feel guilty when we feel like the rooms in our house could use a furniture upgrade. After all, the couch in our living room or the chair in our bedroom isn’t just for us to recline on; it makes a statement about who we are and our personal tastes. And sometimes, tastes change.

That doesn’t mean that you have to take a trip to the local dump to get rid of your old sleigh bed and cracked glass coffee table. Chances are, someone out there is thinking about making some adjustments in their home too. So, why not just sell it?

Don’t know where to start? Here are a few tips.

Tips to prepare your furniture for sale

Image via: Knack Studios

Prep Your Furniture

While some people are really good about furniture upkeep, there are even more who can’t remember the last time they had a professional upholstery cleaning or polished their real woods pieces. The reason why you’re putting your furniture up for sale is so that people will actually spend their money to buy it. Therefore, you’ve got to make sure that what you’re offering is worth the purchase. If it’s in good condition and there are no serious obviously flaws or damage, it’s relatively easy to sell any furniture piece. If you’re selling your bed, however, think long and hard before offering up the mattress. If it’s more than seven years old, honestly, it’s not going to do a potential customer or you any more good. Sell what is useful. Discard what is not.

Plan Wisely

You may be tempted to sell all of the furniture in the house, but that’s probably not the best move. At the most, sell the furniture in one room of your house at a time; but if you can help it, try to do just one piece. For instance, if you know what you want to replace your reclining chair with, be sure to jot down the price of the new piece of furniture and check your budget to estimate how long it will take you to be able to afford it. This will help you to not just sell wisely, but spend wisely in the process. Also plan ahead how much you’re willing to negotiate with a potential customer. It is used furniture and so you need to be open to a little bit of wiggle room; but remember that your furniture is still worth a few dollar bills so don’t go below $10-20 of the initial asking priced. After all, if you wanted to give it away, you could’ve just taken it to a thrift store.

Are you ready to get rid of your old furniture?

Image via: Sweetgrace.Typepad

How Do You Want to Sell It?

Depending on how you choose to look at it, there are a lot of options at your disposal when it comes to selling used furniture. That can be good news if you enjoy organizing things; not so great news if you can’t decide which one way of making a sale suits you best. For instance, if you live in Illinois, attending some Chicago garage sales may provide you with some ideas on how to host one of your own. But there are also other creative methods. You could contact a consignment shop to see if they would be willing to put one (or some) of your pieces on display. The key here is that you get your percentage on the furniture once the sale is officially made. You can sell it online either through a blog of your own or on a highly-trafficked website like Craigslist. They actually have a section devoted to selling furniture and the instructions on how to place an ad are pretty easy to comprehend. You could also reach out to a local furniture liquidator for their ideas on how to make the most of a used furniture sale. They may recommend having an on-site auction or even holding a tag sale. A tag sale is basically when they sell the furniture for you and charge 20-30% off the top. All of these can work in your favor. It’s basically just a matter of deciding how much time and energy you want to put into letting your old furniture go.

For more home furniture ideas on Stagetecture, click here.