IDK... good luck with that.
I cannot think of a single company I would like to buy ALL my furniture from... except for Stickley and that won't stretch far enough there.

If you walk in with cash in hand, they should be ready to deal. Especially if it's a salesperson who is on commission. And if you are going to spend that much money, I would ask them to negotiate not only prices, but free delivery and set-up.

In our town, if you wanted mid- higher end stuff, you would go to Haverty's and I think I would be able to do my whole house with that budget.

Ashley Furniture Homestore has a humongous show room, but the quality may not be the best.

One thing I DO know is that I won't shop at Ashley... We've purchased a few things over the years and all were very poor quality.

Good point on cash - we will definitely mention that up front. Something like a credit card fee to the merchant would really add up on that spend.

I worked at a furniture store during college. We had our largest sale during memorial weekend. Some customers would work with a salesperson, then come in during the sale to place their order. We sold Bernhardt, Stanley, thomasville, etc. Figure out what you want for furnishings, then when that store(s) has its biggest sale. Spending 10-15K at a single store and using good negotiation should be enough to get you an extra 5015% discount depending on the place. Pottery Barn and other type places have friends and family.

We purchased a beautiful solid wood tv stand, end tables, and a coffee table from an Amish (Central Pennsylvania) furniture store. I know that the Amish aren't necessarily in your part of the country, but there may be local woodworkers that you could contact and have some pieces custom made. I didn't the price was terrible for the quality and being able to pick design, wood type, stain color, and hardware. Plus I was able to negotiate a discount because of the size of the order.

" Spending 10-15K at a single store and using good negotiation should be enough to get you an extra 5015% discount depending on the place."

That's quite the savings!

50K is a single room at the upper middle of furniture quality. Or a half of a room at the bottom upper end. You'd have to spend a lot more than 50K to get any real discount. 50K is less than a day's sale to most furniture stores that deal with quality goods.

Where 50K can really go far is buying quality vintage and having it recovered, or spot touched up for the case goods. As long as you aren't into MCM that is. That's become much too collectible and the price has risen significantly. Also check into local art colleges for student artisan furniture makers. There are some incredible pieces being produced from undiscovered folks.

$50k is a single room? For upper middle quality? I'm not buying it. $50k could buy my furniture and my whole blocks furniture where I'm from.

I don't want to shop anywhere that would cost me 50k for one room! In my area, Midwest, small town, I could furnish a 3 bedroom home with decent quality furniture for 50k. I guess it depends where you live and what you are willing to spend. Sure, I could spend 6k on a sofa, but I could also spend 1200 and still have a nice piece of furniture. Kinda like I could buy a high end BMW for my garage or I could buy a small Chevy SUV. Both would do the job.

Yeah..... $50k for one room is not happening at my pay grade for a while. Or ever. Even Resto Hardware which I consider high end could do a heck of a living room for $20k.

What do you mean by furnishing? Is the $50K for just the furniture or does it also include window furnishings, rugs and decorative items?

And how many and what rooms do you plan to furnish with the $50K?

You could always consider buying from the large furniture stores in NC. Even with delivery charges, you can usually save quite a bit of money. And the largest ones, like Furnitureland South, can get items from hundreds of manufacturers.

I would not buy a whole house full of furniture at one time from one store no matter the discount. My advice is take your time decorating your house. If you are spending 50K all at once, then hire an interior designer.

As others have mentioned, you can get a decent inexpensive sofa that's stapled and glued for $1000, another that the frame is solid wood and screwed together for 2-3K or eight way hand tied in an expensive designer fabric for 6K or even 20K.

When we bought our first house, we went North Carolina and bought a bunch of furniture all at the same time. The value and quality were great, but I regretted rushing though a bunch of huge stores and hastily deciding everything in 2 days. 10 years later I don't even have a lot of that furniture anymore. For this house, I took my time and I'm much happier with the results.

Good feedback. Neither my wife and I are that talented in design, so we are hiring a pro designer for sure...

The thing with a term like "upper middle" is that often people don't realize how high prices can go. If you asked my DH, he'd tell you the stuff I buy is top end, because he doesn't even know about the places I'm too cheap to even drool over. OP has mentioned Restoration Hardware, but is concerned about the prices there. So I suspect what she's really thinking of is similar to my level of furnishings. I look for quality pieces, but don't want to spend too much. So I don't do Ikea or Ashley. I appreciate Ethan Allen, but look for something in the middle.

I just added up what I spent on all the furniture and window treatments on my main floor, and I'm around $20k. So $50k isn't an unreasonable budget for someone who isn't looking for $10k sofas and $30k beds.

I'm with pps7 in that I'd rather do it over time, and can't imagine going to one store and just buying the showroom. But, I enjoy the process.

If you really don't want to shop around, then I'd hire a designer. They'll do the shopping for you, and should be passing on their trade discount.

Well, I guess my taste run on the cheap side too because I could stretch 50K pretty far.

About 10 yrs ago we had to buy a whole house of furniture after a fire. I couldn't take years to "collect" as we had nothing. Took my designer with me and spent 2 days at this place. Huge, huge place in a tiny town.

We made an appointment and one person was with us the whole time. Huge discount because of buying so much. Most people do not have 50k to spend on furniture after building. Have fun!

Here is a link that might be useful: Link

Well, I guess my taste run on the cheap side too because I could stretch 50K pretty far.

About 10 yrs ago we had to buy a whole house of furniture after a fire. I couldn't take years to "collect" as we had nothing. Took my designer with me and spent 2 days at this place. Huge, huge place in a tiny town.

We made an appointment and one person was with us the whole time. Huge discount because of buying so much. Most people do not have 50k to spend on furniture after building. Have fun!

Here is a link that might be useful: Link

Don't know where you are located, but this is a great place to browse!

Here is a link that might be useful: Greenfront in Farmville VA

I second working with a decorator, and maybe making a list of which pieces will be "priority" spends. And I'd definitely be making a trip down to North Carolina with an empty truck, or, failing that, I'd be spending lots of quality time at every nice furniture outlet store within a reasonable drive from my home. In particular, RH, PB, Crate & Barrel, and better department stores all regularly have amazing deals on everything from coffee tables and couches to entire bedroom sets, often ordered by a customer who then subsequently changes his/her mind. If you go in to a place like that with a handful of cash and a good idea of what you want and what that costs at retail, you invariably make out like a bandit.

Also, take advantage of your decorator's "trade" pricing for things that are special/will occupy a prominent area in a room. Nothing makes me more sad than walking into a house that looks like it was furnished from three pages of a Pottery Barn catalog. It's nice to find something you don't see everywhere in every color!

Well, I'm working with a contractor on a current project that isn't mansion level, just comfortable upper mid level. The 800 sf home itself cost 700K, is undergoing a 400K remodel, and the ID working on the project has a 500K budget for home furnishings that include lighting, paint, rugs, window treatments, upholstered pieces, and some case goods. The homeowner has quite a bit of inherited pieces that will be used in the new home. There's no Pottery Barn anywhere, because the ID has access to much better quality for less money than they cost. And that is one of the key reasons to work with an ID. Mass market products pay a marketing premium to be thought of as high quality, but for the most part, they aren't.

1.6M invested in an 800 square foot home? I hope it's in a designer zip code.

Left off a zero! 8000 sf. It's a small gated community.

A half million in furnishings, unless there are some true collectibles, on a $1.1 million house sounds extreme to me.

(Of course, this is from someone who furnished a 4,400 sf. plus full basement home with one couch, one bed, one desk and chair and one kitchen set with four chairs. "....Plenty of room at the Hotel California.")

This post was edited by worthy on Thu, Jan 29, 15 at 17:54

"50K is a single room at the upper middle..."
Well, I guess I'll be sitting on my camping furniture a little longer than I'd planned then!

Actually, we just built a small house and included a lot of built-ins in order to get the storage we needed, so 50K would probably furnish my whole house twice. Some people might think the cabinetry budget was crazy, but that can be a trade-off.

I was looking for a dining room from Pottery Barn, I was told that the have a "Moving" discount. 15% your total purchase if you just moved. I'm going to ask for moving discounts in other retailers as well.
Good luck!