Decorating and furnishing your home from stores like Target, West Elm and Pottery Barn can be really problematic. Let’s talk about ways to avoid the big box store home and learn to create your own design style. One that’s highly personal to you, that has better quality, is eco-friendly and sustainable, and dates and evolves really well too. 

 

 

 

Avoid the Big Box Store Home and Create Your Own Design Style

Buying home decor from big box stores like Pottery Barn and Target makes your home look like everyone else’s. And when that happens, your home fails to tell a story about you or your life. 

Big box store furniture tends to be ‘cookie cutter’ and designed to appeal to the masses.

They might be functional and on trend for a short time, but they don’t stay in style, nor do they give you any individuality. And I get that some people don’t care about individuality, but once you’ve lived with well-designed furniture, fabrics and accessories and see how well they work with your lifestyle I promise you’ll know the difference.

Big Box Store Furniture Dates and Evolves Badly

Another problem is that big box store furniture dates and evolves really badly.

Trends come and go, yes but high-quality furniture looks good for 25 to 100 + years whereas mass-produced pieces look dated in 7 to 8 years which leads to a constant cycle of replacing items to stay current, which is neither sustainable nor budget friendly.

Furthermore, these pieces are often not built to last due to cheaper materials and construction methods, causing them to look worn within 6 to 12 months. Paint finishes easily chip. Fabrics pill. And cushions get lumpy.

Create Your Own Design Style

Lastly, if you have furnishings dating before the huge upsurge in big box store furniture, like most of us over 40 do, the big box pieces will look glaringly out of place next to the better quality, older pieces. Unfortunately, we often think that translates to ‘offing’ the older things and replacing them with yet more poor-quality furniture.

What a terrible waste!

Opting for big box store furniture and accessories may seem convenient, but it ultimately results in a home that’s generic, impersonal, poor quality and difficult to pair with anything other than, you guessed it … new, poor-quality furniture.

Emotional Connection Lacking in Big Box Store Furnishings

Big box store furniture and accessories often lack emotional connection. When you choose something yourself or inherit it or receive it as a gift, it holds more sentimental value than store-bought decor. These things ‘tell a story’ and reflect your personality, giving your home meaning.

Gifts, mementos from travels, heirlooms, and items curated with a partner hold special significance, especially if you’ve lost a loved one, God forbid, as I did with my husband Jim.

They remind you of meaningful experiences and relationships, providing a sense of connection and continuity. Old pieces have a special place in your heart because they’re tied to your memories and experiences. They provide a sense of connection and meaning that generic, store-bought items simply can’t replicate.

Create Your Own Design Style with High-Quality Furnishings

Keeping high-quality furnishings, despite their numerical age is not only meaningful and sustainable but also a chance to preserve craftsmanship and history. Older pieces, that predate stores like Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware and West Elm are most often made from superior materials and showcase exquisite workmanship that’s hard to find in mass-produced home furnishings today.

By choosing to refinish and recover your older furniture, you’re extending your budget and creating a really beautiful design style in the process.

Older furniture is usually constructed from solid wood and other durable materials, unlike many modern pieces made from particleboard or other less sturdy materials. This means that with a bit of care and attention, they will last for generations.

Refinishing and Recovering Older, High Quality Home Furnishings

Refinishing or decorative paint work such as glazing and antiquing like I did with my dining room set can breathe new life into an old piece. It can even update its style to current color trends which renders really nice results.

Recovering older, high quality upholstered pieces with new fabric will update its look, help you visually tie together other pieces of furniture and produce a much better-quality piece than big box store items. When you recover older upholstered pieces, consider the condition of the cushions. It’s a great opportunity to do a higher quality cushion. 

In the case of upholstery, the cost to recover a sofa or chair is initially more, generally speaking than buying a new, cheaper model. But believe me when I tell you in the long run, you’ll save because the fabric and cushions will last longer. Not to even mention the fact that you’ll get so much enjoyment from the older, recovered piece. 

One last thing to keep in mind, if you happen to have an older, upholstered sofa or chair that’s say 25 to 30 years old and it was cheap to begin with, keep in mind, ‘cheap’ back then is likely better quality than moderately priced, big box furniture today. So, recovering it is likely still an option.

Sometimes There are Exceptions

And sometimes there are exceptions. In my own living room, I recently replaced a very old sofa with a beautiful, off white, tufted back sofa with casters on the front. I couldn’t resist. 

Yes, pulling everything together is more work, but the payoff is tremendous in quality and style. And with my Holistic Home Virtual Design Packages you’ll get one-on-one virtual help with choosing things like fabrics for chairs and sofas. They virtual sessions are an hour long and held via a Zoom link sent to your email box.

The doors open once a year for new students and clients and on January 13th we’ll be ready for you! But space fills up quickly and then the program won’t be available again for another year. 

Furniture is Not Meant to Be Replaced Every 7 to 8 Years

When we talk about furniture as an investment, we’re shifting our perspective. You go from seeing it as a disposable item to be replaced every few years to becoming a lasting part of your history.

High-quality furniture, especially those made from solid wood often appreciates in value over time. Well-maintained antique pieces can become heirlooms.

Investing in quality furniture means you’re opting for pieces that are built to last. They can come with higher initial costs. But their durability and timeless design ensure that they remain relevant and functional for so many years.

This contrasts sharply with cheaper, mass-produced furniture that may need to be replaced every 7 or 8 years. Becoming worn and dated quickly leads to more waste and higher long-term costs.

Furthermore, high-quality furniture generally ages gracefully.

Unlike trendy, mass-produced items that can quickly become outdated, well-crafted pieces tend to have a timeless appearance. This adaptability further underscores their value as an investment.

Why I Love Refinishing and Recovering Old Pieces

I will leave you with this last story today.

My living room has the same armchairs, slipcovers, etagere, big antique cabinet, tea table, ottoman, accent chairs, custom skirted chair seat cushions and throw pillows for over 20 years. I still love them so much!

Same with my dining room. I had the end chairs slipcovered about 8 years ago. And the 100-year-old dining table and 100-year-old ladderback side chairs were painted by my wonderful, decorative artist three years ago.

I paid about $1,500 for the finishes. So much better than the cost of a new dining room set with half the quality and none of the meaning and character of big box pieces. 

So, yes. I practice what I preach.

Thank for stopping by!

Shiree’

SAVE MY SPOT!

 

 

 

Join me LIVE January 13th at 10:00 am Pacific to learn the 3 frameworks I’ve used for 25 years for family, friends and clients to style, arrange and plan their home makeovers with a small budget, using what they have. Grab your space here and learn all about the  Home Styling Use What You Have Makeover MasterClass

What is Wellness Design? Learn more about the connection between your wellbeing and your home, featured on Deirdre Fitzpatrick’s Dying to Ask Podcast. And if you’d like to dive deeper into this topic, check out my blog post, “Hiring an Interior Designer”.