Whether you are furnishing one room, your whole home or a rental property, the task of furnishing can be overwhelming. The cost of furnish a house, like planning anything in life, ultimately comes down to what your goals are and how to balance them. Whether your goal is to make your house your perfect home or to provide a comfortable temporary space for a guest or renter, there are many factors to consider. On the other hand, if you are planning to move to a new house, you likely have a timeline in mind. The furnishing cost for an entire house (or apartment) involves a balance of timeline, budget and style. And the budget is often the most challenging part of the planning process.
Know your priorities to determine the furnishing cost for your new home
This is Furnishr's guide to help you make decisions about how to balance your goals, timeline and budget.
1
Is this house for you or for someone else?
This is an important question to determine how important personalization is for this home. If this home is for you and your loved ones, you want to create comfort that makes the space feel customized to your preferences and needs. Now, if this home is for someone else, you likely want to prioritize the ease of maintenance and durability of the products along with style. Otherwise, if you are furnishing a short-term rental home or vacation home ( for Airbnb or VRBO), we have another furnishing guide here for rental usages.
2
What are the priorities between style, budget and timeline?
From the thousands of design consultations we have done, we find that our customers often have one weighted priority and have some flexibility between the other two priorities.
Time as the priority
If you are relocating to a new city for a new job or moving out for school, time is usually more limited. Often, the cost to furnish a house increases as your time is more limited. That said, there are areas to accommodate to a quick turnaround time in these situations, often prioritizing essential items to help you ease your transition.
Prioritize the essentials
Nobody wants to move into a new place and sleep on an air mattress! In this case, our recommendation is to start by furnishing your home with key essentials and worry about personalizing later. Check out the list of furniture from the basic tier below.
Over time, you will start collecting items from experiences in this new city, travels and friends. Therefore, bringing any items you already have into the design, especially sentimental pieces and artwork, will dramatically personalize your space.
Style as the priority
Now, if you are moving within the same city or have more time to work on this project, you would likely prefer to focus more on a personalized space that extends your identity. You’re now ready to live life on your own terms. Certainly, this is now going to be YOUR space.
That said, personalizing your space can take time, especially if you aren’t sure what your style is. Also, the furnishing cost increases as you want more personalization. If you have been struggling with this, we would love to help! Try going through this design request questionnaire and talk to our design consultant.
Budget as the priority
Certainly, budget is always a consideration no matter where style and timeline stand. Therefore, we see budget as more of a conversation about your flexibility in time and style. However, this can vary greatly depending on your life stage, priorities, style and the quality you’re looking for. Because this is so personal, we have created a furnishing cost calculator to help give you an idea of what it would cost to furnish a house of different sizes, different rooms and quality levels.
Cost of furnishing a house by tiers
If you have done any furniture shopping, then you probably felt overwhelmed by the number of choices on the market. You can always find furniture and decor in the aisles of big box stores, but their prices and quality are often questionable. There are brands that specialize in home furnishings, but they might not have everything you need for setting up a home and it’s always nice to have pieces from many places. However, nobody wants their home to look like they just copied it from a store display. At the same time, we know you have a timeline and budget and still want to achieve a stylishly furnished home.
Cost of furnishing a major room in a house
To help you navigate this complex job, we have summarized the cost for furnishing each major room in a house. The costs can have a wide range because of a number of reasons:
- The rooms vary in sizes greatly. The more products you can fit into a room, the higher the cost.
- The location of the house also indicates the prices of products. The more variety of shopping options available, the more competitive the prices.
- The style of products also vary in prices. More intricate details you want in the furniture, the higher the costs. Styles like coastal and shabby chic call for natural imperfections and less polishing and may cost less.
Many other reasons will come from your personal situation. The table below is a summary of estimated costs assuming you need to furnish an empty room from scratch with standard furnishings.
Cost of furnishing a house by type
A house mostly likely has multiple bedrooms. With the cost ranges above and the level of importance for each room, we have summarized the cost of furnishing a two-bedroom house, three-bedroom house and four-bedroom house below.
Too overwhelming? Let us help
Furnishr specializes in a turnkey solution to furnish a few rooms or the entire house of any size. We have a team of designers and professional installers who will assemble all the furniture in one day. Check out how we work here.
To get started, just submit a design request.
If you enjoy the design and shopping experience, we totally understand the fun. Read on to see our recommendations on how to find your tier and style.
How to find the tier for you?
In addition to the room breakdown, we’ve broken down the essential furniture and accessories you need for each room based on three tiers of needs: basic, standard and luxury. Aesthetic differences between tiers is minimal. The difference is in the build quality and materials used. Hence, the cost to furnish a house varies based on these key differences.
Basic Tier
This tier includes essential furnishings at an affordable price point. These items are typically made from manufactured or synthetic materials and will be more simple in design. We recommend this tier for a starter apartment, or a lower traffic space. Comparable brands in this category include Target, World Market and Ashley Furniture.
Standard Tier
These pieces are typically made with solid wood frames, denser foam, natural and synthetic materials. This tier can include some accessories and decor pieces to make your space feel like home. If you’re looking for quality furniture at a reasonable price point this is for you. Comparable brands in this category include Article, Crate and Barrel and West Elm.
Luxury Tier
If you’re looking for high quality furnishings and a fully accessorized space, this is the tier for you. These pieces are typically made with solid wood frames, higher quality finishes, denser foam, performance materials and leather. This tier can include a full selection of accessories and decor pieces to give you a complete design. Comparable brands in this category include Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn and Room & Board.
You can type the room (eg. Living Room) in the search bar to see all the products for that room only.
Example of style for each tier
From our experience of designing for thousands of houses, we have also compiled the list of essential products needed for each key room of a house. While there are different tiers for each product type (sofas, coffee tables, etc.), we often recommend mixing products from different tiers to create a balanced and practical design that makes the home comfortable.
Basic Tier
Moodboard
Living Room
- Sofa
- Accent chair
- Coffee table
- Media unit
- Area rug
- Floor lamp
Kitchen
- Counter stools x2
Living Room
- Queen bed frame
- Mattress
- Nightstands x2
- Small dresser
- Table lamps x2
Standard Tier
Moodboard
Living Room
- Sofa or sectional
- Accent chair
- Coffee table
- Media unit
- Area rug
- Floor lamp
- Side table
- Wall art
- Throw pillows
Kitchen
- Dining table
- Dining chairs x4
Living Room
- Queen bed frame
- Mattress
- Nightstands
- Dresser
- Table lamps
- Wall art
- Area rug
Luxury Tier
Moodboard
Living Room
- Sofa or sectional
- Accent chairs x2
- Coffee table
- Media unit
- Area rug
- Floor lamp
- Side table
- Wall art
- Throw pillows and blankets
- Tabletop decor
Kitchen
- Dining table for six
- Dining chairs x6
- Sideboard or bar cart
- Area rug
- Tabletop decor
- Wall art
Living Room
- King bed
- Mattress
- Nightstands x2
- Large dresser
- Area rug
- Table lamps x2
- Mirror
- Wall art
- Throw cushions
- Bench or accent chair
Try our turnkey furnishing solution
It is always a challenge to gauge quality and comfort online, especially from brands you aren’t familiar with. Because of that, we source from many of the same suppliers as brands you already shop from so that you can feel confident in your purchase. Moreover, our team of experts is trained and experienced in furniture selection so that you can sit back and relax without worrying about reading reviews and testing out what seems like hundreds of sofas in store.
When it comes to furniture installation, there is no easier way than a white glove furniture assembly team who will assemble every piece of furniture in each room of the house. The team will be provided the layout so they know exactly where to place the furniture. Let us take the pressure off!
Just submit a design request to get started. Remember to book a design consultant right after!
