Modular furniture - by Dave Nemeth

July 31, 2014

With the ever escalating high price of furniture nowadays one has to be very careful when buying pieces for a home, especially first time buyers as well as families that intend moving to bigger homes as the years progress. The last thing you want to be doing is having to replace all your furniture on every move.

The best option today is to buy quality modular furniture, the term often conjures up images of cheap and nasty Chinese imports made with foil veneers, when in fact these can be found as good quality pieces and even custom manufactured at a more reasonable price than some of the Italian and Scandinavian imports. The simplicity and design of this furniture makes it not only multifunctional but also easy to move into another interior space and allow for growth.

A good example are TV units, when buying these make sure there is enough storage for decoders and speakers and that the top surface is large enough to accommodate larger plasma units as technology advances so do plasma screens get bigger. Free standing is always better than wall mounted units and these can always be utilized in a bedroom or study without looking too formal. Avoid buying large singular units and rather go for additional shelving and cupboard space also as free standing units, as long as these are in the same finish they can be moved to different configurations and again be used in different areas of the home.

Generally straight-lined contemporary furniture will be the best buy as it doesn’t date easily and can fit in with most schemes without looking out of place. Square and rectangular, simplistic dining tables, preferably in real timber are best especially for first time home buyers due to the fact that when moving into a larger space a replica is easy to create and these can simply be pushed together to create a larger dining table. These simplistic dining tables can also be used in a study or child’s bedroom as a desk.

Solid wood, or at least real wood veneer furniture is best due to the fact that this can easily be duco’d and if real wood, even stained a different colour should you tire of your current colour scheme. It is far more cost effective to have a piece of good quality furniture refurbished than it will be to buy brand new.