The Unexpected Furniture Staple a Home Stager Will Never, Ever Thrift
Home stagers tend to do lots of thrifting. Because they need to have a wealth of furniture in different sizes and styles, it helps to buy things used to save money. But while some items are great to get at the thrift store — small decor, vases, art — one mainstay piece of furniture is a no-go for one stager.
“I actually find it very hard to thrift tables — dining mainly,” says Molly Marino, the home stager behind Home by Molly Marino, based out of Chicago, Illinois. “For staging, we need the surface of these tables to be pristine. Dining tables are also big pieces that stand alone in a room. The focus is on their quality.”
Why Dining Tables Are Hard to Thrift for Home Staging
Tables — in particular large, wooden dining tables — go through a lot of wear and tear. Dining tables are eaten on, and may also double as a homework station, place to sort bills, or an arts and crafts center.
By the time a dining table ends up in a thrift store, it’s been transported to a donation center, maybe had some other donation items stacked on top of it, and possibly gone on and off a moving truck, and been loved by a family for quite some time. Stickers and labels also can ruin the surface or finish of a solid wood table.
“While I used to try to save money by thrifting some of these and refinishing them, the time and effort it took me was not worth it,” Marino says. “I would rather thrift a really cool chair or piece of artwork, and spend time reframing or painting the trim.”
If you’re in the market for a dining table to help better “stage” your space for a home sale, but can’t afford to buy new, you don’t need to rule out thrifting. But Marino warns that repairing and bringing a table back to its original glory can be hard work — and it might be way more work than it’s worth, especially if you don’t plan on keeping the table.
“Be prepared to put in the work to refinish them,” she says. “At minimum, most of them need a coat of gloss or protective sealant, but more often than not they need sanding, which is hard work, and restaining.”
If you already own a sander, or you’re borrowing one from a friend, refinishing a table can still cost around $100 for a pack of sanding sheets, stain, and polyurethane.
What a Home Stager Likes to Thrift Instead
The items that Marino loves to buy secondhand for staging include artwork, lamps, and vintage kitchen and bar supplies such as walnut bowls and mortar and pestles. For artwork that isn’t in good shape, she’ll often swap out the matte and possibly replace the frame (which can be commonly found at thrift stores for cheap!). The lamps she gets often need rewiring, but that can be done after watching a well-explained YouTube video. Rewiring kits usually don’t cost very much money, either.