I give up - shopping for furniture...*update -& more questions....

[joraemi]

I think it's an almost real possibility that my head may explode.  We are shopping for new bedroom furniture and I just can't find anything I like.  The bed will be great, but I wont' like the nightstands, or vice cersa, or the set wont' have an optional media chest, or the headboard is too low......or....WHATEVER......

I just wish I could go upstairs and somehow, magically, the perfect furniture will materialize!

What do you guys do in these situations?  Do you look somewhere special for inspiration?

[alkira6]

I did just what you did - almost three years later our bed is still in its $40 metal frame and we have old end tables as night tables.  You might want to do what we did for the living room and buy separate pieces.  We bought a sofa from one set, ottoma from another, and a large chair and a half from yet another set. It was more expensive as we didn't get the set discount, but we got exactly what we wanted for the living room. We will eventually (eventually!) get around to doing the same for the bedroom.

[Only me]

I ended up getting something I liked about 6 years ago, by going to a local auction.

[MindsEye]

As someone who just bought new bedroom furniture over the summer, I have to ask ... does it really have to be a matched set?  If you are looking for the perfect matched set, that might take a long time and get to be pretty expensive.

Do you mind if I asked where you have looked so far?

DH and I bought our bed new (The Mandal bed from Ikea - http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30176309/ - because I have always wanted a bed with built-in drawers) and the seat/blanket chest new from a local Amish carpenter, but the dressers and bedside tables are varying flavors of vintage that we picked up from different antique and resale stores.  (Except for my dresser - that was my grandmother's, but we did refinish it.)

If you like clean lines, seeing if you can get everything from Ikea might work for you, and a lot of it is really mix and match.   

[LazyDaisy]

I did this same thing this summer, with the even more difficult task of wanting solid wood rather than laminate. I ended up buying separate pieces from different stores that matched in style and color but weren't a set. There were a few sets that came close to what I wanted and I'm a bit handy with tools, so I was toying with the idea for a while of buying "close enough" and customizing it myself if possible.

[Amara]

Don't buy a matched set! (That's my opinion anyway, and it seems to be what many interior designers recommend too.) I bought all my furniture off CraigsList with the exception of the bed. Admittedly, it's still a work in progress but what I like, what I love actually, is that I have a home filled with unique items that all work beautifully together.

Here's what I suggest. First, determine how you intend to use your bedroom. Do you want it to be serene, a place to sleep, perhaps read? Do you want to watch television in bed? Do you prefer an uncluttered look? Are there any particular pieces of furniture you despise (armoires, long dressers, etc.)? Do you have pets who will be sleeping with you? What color(s) would be your ideal choices? What types of furniture (design, color, style, etc.) do you favor? Here's where all those interior design magazines and blogs and websites come in very handy; they let you see so much that is out there and you can easily determine what works for you; if you can determine why something "works" for you, or does not, you are on your way to finding the right pieces.

Second, look for individual pieces that fit the intention/theme of your bedroom. For example, I am making mine a seafoam green so I will have some blue-greens, teals and emerald greens in addition. I dislike matched sets of any furniture so I have two antique Duncan Phyfe tables I use as nightstands and a single two-drawer dresser with tall legs from the 1930s. They do not "match," and I love that. The bed, because it is so large and needs to make room for a lovely wing chair with ottoman, is off center, and so on. It works for me because I only read and sleep in there so I want peaceful, quiet, calm, an oasis for me.

CL, garage sales, flea markets, maybe thrift stores. I'd certainly look online. There are any number of stores that have furniture regardless of your price range. Also, HGTV magazine is a wonderful DIY resource that often has stories of flea market finds of old stuff that is repurposed with some old-fashioned handwork.

Best of luck with whatever you choose.

[Outdoor Girl]

Crate Designs is a Canadian company that makes solid wood furniture in a light coloured, rustic pine.  They have lots of mix and max combinations for the bed, with or without drawers, various tables that can be used as a nightstand, various dressers, desks and dressing tables, etc.

If that's the look you are going for, you could see if they have an American presence.

[camlan]

What types of furniture stores are you looking in?

I would avoid a store that carries just one brand. Look for a local, family-owned store, or a small chain with just a few stores, that carries a wide range of manufacturers. Many will have a designer in-store, or their sales people will be designers.

They will be able to match the furniture in their stores to your requirements. They can tell you if a given line of furniture comes in different wood stain colors, or sizes or other variations (some sets have different height beds, or different sized nightstands, that sort of thing). They'll do furniture layouts of your room, so you can see what looks best. They'll drag a nightstand from one set over to another so that you can see what they look like together.

There's nothing wrong with a mis-matched look, but if you want a matched look, you should be able to find it. Just check out some of the smaller stores--they are also more likely to be willing to special order stuff for you, too.

[Slartibartfast]

I would look around to see if there's an unfinished furniture store near you.  We got a kitchen table and chair set and a dresser from our local one - they have a huge number of styles you can order, then they can stain/paint it for you in whatever colors you want.  The price is usually pretty good - we got a solid oak (not pressboard) kitchen table + 4 chairs + bench, in the exact color we wanted, for less than the cost of just a table at the "discount" furniture place in town.

[doodlemor]

Don't buy a matched set! (That's my opinion anyway, and it seems to be what many interior designers recommend too.) I bought all my furniture off CraigsList with the exception of the bed. Admittedly, it's still a work in progress but what I like, what I love actually, is that I have a home filled with unique items that all work beautifully together.

Here's what I suggest. First, determine how you intend to use your bedroom. Do you want it to be serene, a place to sleep, perhaps read? Do you want to watch television in bed? Do you prefer an uncluttered look? Are there any particular pieces of furniture you despise (armoires, long dressers, etc.)? Do you have pets who will be sleeping with you? What color(s) would be your ideal choices? What types of furniture (design, color, style, etc.) do you favor? Here's where all those interior design magazines and blogs and websites come in very handy; they let you see so much that is out there and you can easily determine what works for you; if you can determine why something "works" for you, or does not, you are on your way to finding the right pieces.

Second, look for individual pieces that fit the intention/theme of your bedroom. For example, I am making mine a seafoam green so I will have some blue-greens, teals and emerald greens in addition. I dislike matched sets of any furniture so I have two antique Duncan Phyfe tables I use as nightstands and a single two-drawer dresser with tall legs from the 1930s. They do not "match," and I love that. The bed, because it is so large and needs to make room for a lovely wing chair with ottoman, is off center, and so on. It works for me because I only read and sleep in there so I want peaceful, quiet, calm, an oasis for me.

CL, garage sales, flea markets, maybe thrift stores. I'd certainly look online. There are any number of stores that have furniture regardless of your price range. Also, HGTV magazine is a wonderful DIY resource that often has stories of flea market finds of old stuff that is repurposed with some old-fashioned handwork.

Best of luck with whatever you choose.

When we were furnishing our Victorian home we did it mainly from antique stores, tag sales, and so forth.  Whenever we were doing a new room or area I used to look through my stack of Victorian magazines and books for inspiration. 

I suspect that you want an individualized look.  I think that you need to find pictures of things that you like, whether in magazines or online, and go from there.  Find enough photos, think about it for awhile, and then make your decisions.  Don't let yourself be pressured into something that isn't right for you.  Your house, you can do any goofy thing that you want.

[Hmmmmm]

I agree about not buying a set.  Find a bed you love and buy it.  Then find coordinating pieces as you happen upon them or as your needs change.  We bought the wardrobe we have about 15 years ago.  When we bought it, I had a fabric headboard and one glass side table.  Then we moved and we kept the same headboard and the wardrobe but moved to different bedside table.  In current house we moved all the furniture but switched to a new headboard/footboard and bought a mule chest to add.  All the pieces look great together and have similar styling but they were purchased over a 10 year period. 

The only bedroom we have that is a set is in my DDs room.  And I really wish it wasn't one because it is just too much of the same wood and style. 

[Talley]

I agree with all PPs who said that you shouldn't look for a matched set.

DH and I looked all over for a furniture set for our bedroom and could not find one that we liked and that was affordable. Then we found the perfect bed - and it had matching bedside tables, which were absolutely hideous and impractical. Luckily, the bed could be bought separately, so we just bought the bed. And for over a year we had two dining-room chairs as our bedside tables... And then we found the perfect beside tables at a different shop when we were actually looking for something else... Seven years later, and we still have the bed and the bedside tables.

[joraemi]

Hi everyone!

Thanks for the advice.  I've been looking through pictures on HGTV's website.  The problem I seem to be having is that I like dramatically different styles!  I can like a really traditional looking bedroom, but then I can like the modern one that comes up after it too.

I'd like to do a mix of the two - maybe more traditional furniture with more modern window treatments, etc.

I guess I don't have to have matchin gpieces - just hadn't thought about it too much.

Most of my "shopping" has been online thus far.  We have a nice store near me that carries oodles and oodles of lines of furniture.  Maybe if I go there one of the nice ladies will help me. 

For now I'll try and incorporate everyone's suggestions and see if I can at least get ONE thing decided on.  I'll try and start with a bed and go from there.

[joraemi]

p.s.  Do you have a footboard?  Or just a headboard?  If you have a footboard that comes up above the edge of the mattress, does it make you feel claustrophobic? Are you claustrophobic normally?  (lol)

[Amara]

Looking online is good, but when you look at those pictures ask yourself what works for you in them. If you can begin to understand why you like it then you can begin to develop your understanding of what you like. Use them only to study and learn about your own tastes. And if you look at some of the interior design magazines--I subscribe to most of them but especially like Home Beautiful and Traditional Home--you'll begin to notice how the best looking (not necessarily the biggest or most expensive) homes are not sets of anything but individual pieces chosen over time because the homeowner loved them. I love the poster here who used dining room chairs for bedside tables until she found the ones she loved; great idea!

IF go out and look at stores (new, used, antique), garage sales, swap meets, CL, etc. after beginning with the one essential piece, the bed, plus knowledge of what you want your bedroom to be for you all else can come in time. And you'll have a room you love.

Can you tell I love talking about home design?