Living Fancy: Contemporary Living Room Set for Under $1200
For most of us we come with a budget, searching for the best and most reasonable prices to make your living area complete, can be the most difficult and biggest challenge of it all. We all dream of the perfect living space for our homes, but with that there’s always a price to pay. Whether we like to believe it or not, furniture is one of the most expensive purchases you’ll have to invest in when outfitting your home. Just to buy one sofa could cost you up to $1000 – which is not an ideal price for everyone. On the bright side, that $1000 sofa purchase can last you years, so it’s not entirely a waste of money, however we’d like to be able to have some money left over for other furniture, right?
It’s an amazing feeling and extremely exciting when finding a place of your own when moving to your dream city, but then the cost of living in addition to the cost to buy furniture, etc. can easily add a bit more stress to your overall moving situation. This situation happened to me recently. I moved into a new apartment with nothing but my clothes, laptop and a few belongings – and though I have a job, buying furniture was definitely not in my budget at the time.
I thought about my options, I could have easily bought a cheap and used couch for half or even less the price of a brand new couch, but wasn’t too fond of the idea that there is a possible chance of risk when doing that. So I decided to wait it out, and as time went by, I finally had enough saved for just the couch. As a bargain dealer, I searched all over the web for the best deal, and though I ended up finding some good deals online, just knowing I’d still have to spend $500 or more on one couch was not something I was looking forward to.
Luckily after an extra hour or so of researching, I came across this local furniture company called Steal-A-Sofa, which had such hard-to-believe type of deals! This furniture company offered crazy but AMAZING furniture prices – like couches were literally under $500!! Which in my case, is usually unheard of! I thought to myself – “is this real life?” But of course, I was still a bit skeptical at first, as we all know that pictures can be a bit deceiving and can easily fool you, so I decided to look up their address and pay a visit that week.
Prior to coming in, I went through their website to look for furniture pieces that caught my eye. I came across this sectional leather couch that came with an ottoman for a very unbeatable price of $349! And a gorgeous glass coffee table set for only $159! This seriously was my dream come true – how did I get so lucky?
Steal-A-Sofa is located in Downtown Los Angeles (1151 South Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90015), which was only about 20ish minutes away from me. As I walked in, they had a nice display of couches, dining tables, chairs and much more. The guy at the front was very helpful and kindly showed me around. As we walked through, I was shockingly surprised at how nice and quality-worthy the furniture pieces looked. This was definitely not a scam. I told the guy about the pieces I had seen online and luckily they had the couch in store (the company has a separate warehouse where they store and ship out all of their furniture). To my exciting surprise, the couch I had found online looked EXACTLY like the online display. The leather sectional was comfortable and the right size for my living room space. I’d say my visit was a success and I was a sold customer!
I decided to make all my purchases online, as they offer more of a selection than they do in-store. Given my interior designer skills are quite poor – I found that Pinterest was a great tool to use for some room inspiration.
Just like styling my own outfit, as a base, I used the couch as a main piece, and “styled” around it. My vision for my living room space would be simple yet modern and contemporary.
The Process:
Throughout my apartment, I have light brown wood floors, and as the couch is a dark brown color, I thought the glass coffee table with the dark brown legs would be a great touch. The coffee table is an unbeatable price, as it also comes with two rounded end tables as well! For light, I was really digging this floor lamp that can be placed over the couch, creating a nice reading light effect, yet stylish and it fit well with the effortless contemporary feel.
For additional pieces to complete the room, I added simple touches such as this cream furry rug, city-vibe art piece and this gorgeous accent collage mirror (which btw adds the perfect final touch to the living room space).
The Delivery:
Once I decided on what I wanted and what would fit in my living room space, I ordered the items. Luckily, the delivery process was as easy as 1-2-3! Once I placed my order, I received a text stating when the items would be delivered and the time frame. I made sure to obviously be home the entire day. When the delivery day came, the delivery guy had called about 15-30 minutes prior to let me know he would be here soon. When they arrived, the two guys brought in the furniture and automatically started setting the pieces up. Prior to the delivery, I had only seen the couch in person, while the rest, I had only seen online. I was so impressed and excited that everything turned out as what I had hoped for! I especially loved the rug, the glass coffee table and the beautiful collage mirror! Fortunately for me, every single piece matched well-together (I guess you can say, all of that Pinterest brainstorming and furniture browsing has made me an interior design expert, haha 😉 ).
Overall, the delivery process was smooth and simple. The delivery guys were great and nice, they even assembled everything for me as well. Steal-A-Sofa offers customers a delivery credit of $49 when you spend a subtotal of $999 or more.
This is honestly one of my very first times decorating my own living room space, usually I lucked out and lived with people who already had furniture, and I have to admit, I really love the way the space turned out! All honesty, you don’t have to spend a fortune when decorating your living space, I bought these flower vases and fake flowers from the dollar store (crazy, right?) and decorated it with candles from TJ Maxx. Some other stores you can shop for inexpensive home decor are Saks Off Fifth, Nordstrom Rack and Kohl’s. While going through this process, I definitely learned a few tips and tricks to save and get your money’s worth! Here are few helpful tips:
Online shopping may be intimidating, but it is definitely something most of us do nowadays, not to mention has endless amazing deals that you might not find in-store, so TAKE ADVANTAGE!
- Compare prices. For instance, you found a couch you love at one of your favorite stores, right? Well before purchasing it, I recommend you copy and paste the name of the couch into Google and see if there are better prices for that same couch. Most likely there are! 🙂
- Find a local furniture store. So instead of looking at well-known brands such as IKea or Target, find a local store near you. For instance, when searching I came across Steal-A-Sofa which clearly saved me a lot of money! You never know, local furniture stores usually have valuable, quality-worthy deals than a big name brand.
- Brainstorm. Figure out the measurements of your living area space (this definitely helps when deciding on what can fit first before buying). I used Photoshop and just copied and pasted the pictures in a layout to see what my “vision” would look like. You can also use helpful tools such as Houzz to get easy interior design inspo or design your own home virtually.
