LEARN MORE Investing in furniture

Cheap furniture starts to look bad long before you have to throw it out. Good traditional furniture is well proportioned, and well crafted

of excellent materials. All good furniture is expensive, but it’s also a reasonable investment in comfort and longevity. Good furniture is worth

waiting for. And most people will indeed have to wait, furnishing one room at a time, even buying one good piece a year. Drapery, for example, can be done in layers; you don’t lose anything by living with lace curtains while you save for the silk panels that will hang over them. It’s the same with carpeting: buy the bound sisal now, and when you can afford a handmade Persian carpet, the sisal can be your summer rug or move to a bedroom. But cheap furniture will be a disappointment from the start.

Furnishing a house is personal. Most people do it without a great deal of forethought, mixing what they have, what they inherited, and what they like in an idiosyncratic overlap of function and whimsy. Others take a more studied approach. A percentage rely on a professional decorator or interior designer to sort through the endless possibilities, and to avoid expensive mistakes. Given the cost, it makes sense to buy furniture pieces with timeless design, and which complement the house.