• by LAUREN HESKIN In IMAGE Magazine
  Reproduced here by Caden Grimes Estates

Don’t go completely wild when you first find you need to fill your new home. There are some interiors items worth investing in and some items you can hold off on until you’re in your forever home.

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When you first get your own place, you might be tempted to totally lose the run of yourself and your tiny pencil in Ikea, and finally get to snap up all the interiors pieces you’ve been drooling over. However, it can also get overwhelming just how much you needto buy. A bath mat, dishes, cutlery, furniture for every room, cleaning things, cushions, bedsheets, light fixtures and bulbs… It’s a lot.

Knowing what to invest in and when can be tricky, so have your thinking cap on when it comes to interiors shopping. You might love that expensive and beautiful dinner set, but can you afford to buy eight of each and do you have a place to put them? If not, it’ll be impossible to buy more when you eventually need them and, unless they’re neutral, you’ll be looking at mismatched plates for years to come.

However, there are some things that are worth spending your money on now and will see you through for years (and house moves) to come. Here’s our round-up of what you should invest in now, and what you should wait to buy later.

Invest in: A good armchair

Whether your place is a shoebox and only has room for one piece of furniture and triple-jobs as lounging seat, desk chair and dinner table pull-in, or you have slightly more room, buying a gorgeous armchair will see you through numerous moves.

If you buy a small one it’ll work great as a bedroom or nursery chair in later years and it’s guaranteed to be the first thing you move in every place after this. That, and the kettle.

Don’t invest in: A sofa

Styles, room and requirements will change between this home and the next. Right now you might want that plush pale two-seater sofa, whereas next time you might want something that’ll hide stains and sticky fingerprints and one you can properly stretch out on. This isn’t to say you should buy a cheap one, we desperately need to move away from the current throwaway culture and that goes for small things like plastic toothbrushes to chunks difficult-to-recycle couches. Hunt through charity shops, ask your parents and family friends, check DoneDeal and Facebook sites. You’re bound to find out that, maybe you don’t love, but you can definitely tolerate.

Invest in: A luxury throw

Remember that sofa you’re tolerating? A snug throw can cover all manner of sins, from a simple white Ikea throw to cover up a shabby chair or a beautiful blanket that you cuddle into every time you sit down. Being skint in your first place isn’t meant to be all hardship. Treat yourself to the small things and you’ll suddenly find that next time you look at that second-hand sofa, all you’ll see is your favourite blanket.

Don’t invest in: A rug

You should buy a rug for a room and it should neatly fit the shape and colouring of that space. A good rug is also worthy of investment, anyone who has been spent a few months hoovering up escaped threads from a cheap one will know why.

It’s simply not worth buying a rug unless you’re going to stay for the lifespan of that rug, otherwise, you’ll just be dragging it from room to room of your next home and finding it just doesn’t “work”.

Invest in: A good duvet

My mother bought me a kingsize down feather duvet when I first moved out. At the time I thought she was being ridiculous (she bought in TK Maxx but still, they are not cheap) but I have thanked her for it a thousand times since. Unless you’re sleeping in a single bed or superking, a kingsize duvet will never be too big and it means that you can just buy kingsize sheets. It’ll stop a build-up of double, queen and king-sized sheets in your cupboard, keeping you on the straight and narrow from the get-go.

Invest a large, top-quality duvet and you will be patting yourself on the back every time you clamber into bed after a long day.

Don’t invest in: A bedframe

A divan will do for now or a good charity shop find will do for now. Your bedroom style will change and shift, as will the size of your bed probably, so don’t buy the dream bed frame in a double, only to have to relegate it to the spare bedroom in five years’ time.