Most of us have a favorite furniture find — whether the piece was bought brand new, scoured off of Craigslist or spotted at the neighborhood yard sale. For me, it's a dining room table with matching chairs. Unfortunately, when I recently moved, I downsized to a space with no dining room — but I'm dead set on keeping it in the family.
Even though I have extra storage space below my apartment the dining room table and chairs were too large to fit. I couldn't rationalize renting a storage unit for an unforeseen amount of time — especially when the dining room set cost me only $100. So I ended up reaching out to friends in the hopes that they wanted to borrow my furniture (and lucky for me, someone did).
I also lent out a ginormous painting that simply didn't fit with my current furniture placement (yet I couldn't bear the thought of permanently parting with it). Because a friend lives right down the street, I have the opportunity to "visit" my furniture and see it put to good use.
Apartment Therapy readers, what are your alternatives to renting a storage unit when you just can't seem to part with your favorite furniture? Did you lend items out to friends and if so, was the experience a pleasant one?
Image: Marcia Prentice via How To Create a Furniture Placement Plan; Home Hacks
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Having read the horror stories of this exact scenario here...
...how did you establish what happens when the friend has a housefire, the friend's cat destroys the seats on your vintage dining chairs or the leaky plumbing from the upstairs neighbor's bathroom caves in the ceiling while she's in Mexico and destroys your furniture?
Your renter's insurance simply won't cover your things in someone else's home, but it would if it were somehome damaged/destroyed in your rented storage unit.
I think the point is that there isn't much monetary value (only $100), she just really, really likes it. So if it was damaged, that would suck a lot, but otherwise there's at least a chance she gets it back.
@greatkate--
That may be true in Beth's case - but there are other readers reading this who may have paid alot more for an item and don't want to pay storage but haven't thought through these types of issues.
You might think "What could happen?" when you loan it out - but then when something actually does happens to it and the realization sets in that the replacement value is greater than what was paid or that you could have sold the item and had some money in your pocket - attitudes suddenly have a way of changing...
I leave things in the magical land called "my parents' house."
Heh, really though, we don't have any furniture left behind that hasn't been permanently given away. If it's not an important family heirloom, it's not worth the hassle.
Heck, with a table and chairs for $100 I would probably be even more tempted to sell it if I had enough time, because you might even be able to up-sell the set for a profit!
We moved to Florida beach condo, 1/4 the size of our Michigan home. I convinced my girlfriend to move from Michigan to Florida to be near me, even going so far as to find her a great house....3 BR, 3B, 3 story, 3.5 oversized 3 car garage....with an elevator. My junk is now in her oversized garage, along with hers. She only has one car, and doesn't mind....though I am determined to purge holiday decor and get my number of bins down from....oh let's say 40-50 to under 10 since we can't use the stuff anyway!
Do you really mean "lending" to your friends? What happens when you decide you want something back, and they've grown to love it as a centerpiece too? My sister once "gave" me (I thought) black leather pants I loved and wore all the time, then demanded them back. Just don't want hurt feelings among friends.
Funny! My base of the bed in my guest pod is a favorite heavyweight coffee table I couldn't find room for elsewhere.
My friends and I have done this a lot. There are those things you just can't seem to part with, but really don't have a place for. You're still "keeping it in the family."
My pal just moved in to a much smaller house, and had to give up his gigantic couch. His wife hates the thing, but the rest of us love it. It's absolutely the comfiest couch in the world. So now it lives in my basement, probably until its worn out, but all of us still get to enjoy it.
I can't believe it's an issue for people to worry about letting their friends borrow their furniture!! My friends and I do it all the time and we always take great care of the items we lend, and we love seeing our stuff in different applications! What does that say about your friendships if you won't trust them with a silly coffee table? If an item is all that precious then yes, rent that prohibitively expensive storage unit and let it collect dust.
Do you think this is a good option for a piece you want to give away, but can't? We have a horrid dining room table and chairs that we will be replacing soon. We received them on loan from my in-laws, who don't want the set back but want it to "stay in the family." The problem is, anyone else in the family that owns a home/apt already has a dining set... and everyone else is high-school age or younger! We don't have the room to store it in the garage until ten years down the road when someone might need it.
Is it unreasonable to loan/give it to a friend? I'm not sure why my mother-in-law wants to keep it around. There's no family history with it, and she said we could do all the refinishing we wanted (aka, she doesn't care how it looks).
I just went through this with my mother. She downsized from a 2100 sqft house to a 1100 sqft apartment, and realized ON moving day that it all wasn't going to fit. She ended up handing out stuff to friends and neighbors left and right--not as "loans," but as gifts. When it came down to it, she realized she didn't really "need" any of it, and since she didn't plan to upgrade into a bigger home any time soon there would really be no way to reclaim it.
After moving 9 times in the past 6 years (college then grad school), I've learned the hard way that there's really very little stuff we "need." Especially if you don't have the space for it. Yes, it's hard to part with your grandmother's antique dining room table set, but ultimately aren't the photos in the albums and a needlepoint pillow filled with her potpourri just as meaningful (if not moreso) than some heavy carved wood?
Suze Orman once said that if you have to put it into a storage unit then you really don't want or need it, and you might as well get rid of the storage unit. I completely agree.
Just had almost $3,500 worth of stuff stolen out of a storage unit. They picked the lock so the insurance I bought on the container denied the claim because there were no signs of forced entry. Really wish I had left my 52" tv with a friend instead of putting it in there. Well you live, you learn.
I have to agree with some above - if it gets damaged at a friend's, it's a loss that you can't get back. And is the poster really someone who wants to demand their furniture back after a friend possibly falls in love with it? Most dining tables can be taken apart and can be stored in a small storage space - I go with the standby, if you can't make it fit you didn't really want it or you would have been looking for a place to fit it.
@ctmorgan: I believe you are completely within your rights as an adult to return the white elephant to your mother-in-law, explaining that you have no room for it, and that no one else in the family does either, and that, since you were only keeping it at her request, she is now responsible for finding a satisfactory residence for it. It isn't your problem to find a place for the furniture that will meet her needs. She should meet her own needs.
I feel strongly about this. I believe your partner (the person whose mother created this dilemma) should be the one to inform the controller of the furniture's destiny of your joint decision.
Another (more wickedly passive-aggressive) option is to refinish it with the absolute wrong materials, ruin it, and then send her a photo just before the dump trucks pick it up.
Ha!
I lent out an antique wardrobe to a friend. Less than five months later, we had a falling out. Never saw it again. It wasn't a big deal to me because the wardrobe was damaged and the wood was fragile. It wasn't worth the trouble. With that said, I wouldn't recommend sending furniture to non-family members.
I'm downsizing too, moving to small cabin. And I have this daybed I don't want to lose, that I want to use. At the moment I'm wandering will I be able to fit in the living area, or maybe I'll put it in the garage... or the all screen covered pergola area at front, that *might* be subject to weather.
Bad things can happen to your furniture when it is at a friend's. But bad things can happen to it when it's in your house, too.
A friend is currently harboring an expensive patio set for me. She has a patio; I no longer do.
Because I've recently inherited an obscene amount of family furniture, I have been gradually moving closer to "It's better that someone enjoy it NOW than for me to store it, unused, indefinitely." The list of things I "must" keep gets shorter and shorter.
Remove the legs and put it under your Bed!!! Hang the chairs on the wall for extra seating...when needed and you could easily reassemble the table for those few big parties!!!
I agree with sharing with friends, but I have always done it under the assumption I am giving the item to them as a gift and will not be getting it back. It's a much safer method if you value you friends over the item being shared. If it's something I really want to hold on to, I will find a place to creatively use or store it - no matter how small my space.
Maybe my family is different, but we pass things around. "I'm going to want that back at some point" is a common line, and we don't have too many issues with it. We all take good care of each other's stuff and are sure to e-mail each other before donating something to charity.
It's kind of neat to see that my childhood dresser, is now in my cousin's sons' bedroom.
I think it depends. It depends on your relationship with your friends, and how attached you are to the furniture.
I currently have some furniture in my house that belongs to friends. I really love it, but if they rang me up right now and said 'can I have that back' my reply would be 'sure, it's yours after all!'. In fact, that DID happen with my last dining table.
I would say, if you are going to do this, admit the fact that something bad may happen, the friendship may explode, anything, and you will lose the furniture. If it's too too precious for this to happen, don't lend it out. And only lend it to good friends. Not that you can always tell (I have someone's shelves and they have about 100 of my DVDs, and we no longer speak. Those things aren't getting returned, dammit) but you can make a good guess a lot of the time.
I've had some good pieces of furniture that have gone to live with others permanently, because they were nice enough that I didn't want to give them to the salvos, but not nice enough to sell. Furniture is meant to be used, after all!
If it is precious enough to me to keep in my family, I won't send it somewhere else, period. It would find a way into my home in one way or another because I've had those friends that are great friends, but don't respect the stuff in their homes like my family does. I would most definitely understand something like a flood or fire occurring where the piece of furniture was ruined, but not it getting trashed because they let the pet go to the bathroom all over or the kids play on it without any rules (don't jump from the table to the couch you'll break it kind of thing). Now that being said, if I have only a slight emotional attachment to it and it isn't heirloom quality I will most definitely gift it, with the idea that no matter what it was NEVER coming back into my house!
I won't deal in storage units or furnishings loans. Lending and accepting loans has caused me more aggravation than it's worth. Either I keep stuff in my home and use it, or I discard or sell or give it away. The recipient's free to do the same. I never attach strings to gifts.
I must quote Shakespeare:
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry"
Never 'loan' furniture with the expectation that you are going to get it back. It is wise however to give it to someone who you are certain will cherish it as much as you do. Chances are you will get great satisfaction out of the loan if they are really using it and enjoying it. You will find that you probably didn't 'need' it in the first place. I have passed many pieces, and recieved many pieces over the years. It's good karma. (Now... I just hope a friend doesn't want the bed he gave me five years ago, becuase I traded it for a dining table I use in my bedroom to office converstion.)