Are people much richer these days or just more ‘picky’?

Allira

mae13

Maybe the French bed-bug scare of very recent years has put people off second-hand furniture no matter how well preserved it looks.

Bedbugs in a chest of drawers?
Dining table and chairs? 🤔

In my home city the university students chuck out loads of perfectly useful stuff come the end of each academic year. Time it right and you can really "fill your boots" with what they are getting rid of.

So I've had a mixed bag of stuff I picked up from that - eg a shoe rack I used for years on the one hand but a wooden chest that I then noticed little piles of dust by, followed by noticing little holes in it (ie woodworm) and so I promptly got rid of that when I realised.

I have been surprised at the things my son has picked up on Facebook Marketplace, either free or less than a tenner. We are currently using a very serviceable table and set of dining chairs. Not particularly beautiful, but hard wearing and useful. At the other end of the scale I still treasure my grandmother's 19th century Arts and Crafts sideboard which I have loved since I was very small.

My husband loved antique fairs and often bought items. The house became full, every square inch was used. I have kept some, but many have gone to auction.
I have kept a 17th Century oval drop-leaf dining table, but if I ever move I won’t want to take it with me.
I know my children won’t want anything from my house when I die. It will probably all go in a skip, unless the tide has turned by then.

Before we married in ‘72 my MiL said they’d gift us their dining suite. It was hideous - solid wood, but that was its only redeeming feature! The table was square with lots of cross-members underneath and a dreadful sideboard, the same as my Gran’s, but at least she was 20 years older.
I’m sure FinL must have read my mind (or seen the panic in my eyes) and a week later said we ought to pick what we wanted, hinting Gplan from a local furniture store. We had that for 20 years, but it was too small for this house, so it was donated and replaced with Old Charm, which I still have, although the DDs have voiced that they won’t want it.

mokryna our house was in Lower Normandy, and area where the landscape is dotted with stone farmhouses, like a field with daisies. It is one of the cheaper areas in France for property, which is also accessible for Paris and is a focus for dairy farming.

Many young people, like our neighbours, buy one of these roomy farmhouses as their first (and probably only) house purchase. The big furniture looks beautiful in them.

We sold all our big furniture with the house, but took smaller items like occasional tables, a sideboard, bedside tables etc to the Depot de Vente. Stuff we knew was unsaleable in the UK and most of it sold within days, a mahogany reproduction side table went for £55 and other items went between £20-£40.

We are regular browsers and buyers at the local DdeV and whenever we go there is it always full of people and good long queues at the tills.

Obviously tastes change. In recent years teak mid-century modern funiture has gone from back of the further shed aand give away prices to pride of place by the main door, with prices to match, many well known English brands, as the earlier second-homers, like us, grow old, sell-up or die. Pries for big traditional pieces have dropped but not like in the UK, down 25%, not 100%

I brought a small wooden prayer chair back from Brittany and sold it for £100.
Our old cat was very cross, because his back legs could just about jump up that high to sleep!
Everything else in the way of furniture we sold with the properties so I've no idea what price the items fetched.

I’ve come on to say… attempting to give away for free good furniture on FB marketplace or similar, elicits the query “whats wrong with it” and people do not want it as the ‘seller’ has not put a value on it.
This wisdom is from years of experience.
However should you happen to leave furniture in a skip!
it will disappear overnight.

We had two serviceable, comfortable, plain brown dining chairs we chalk painted in pink then made new linen flowery seat covers.
Everyone who saw them exclaimed how pretty they looked.
I could have sold them many times over.

Fashions and styles change its true, dark, heavy, old furniture in modern, light filled houses or smaller apartments does not work.

I can remember my parents having to rent recondioned televisions( ie television sets near the end of their life that had a few parts changed to keep them going) until I was 18. No one nowadays would consider having to pay a monthly fee for a television set that was barely working and needed to be repaired at least a month, but that's how things were. Finally they came into a bit of money when I turned 18 and obtained a new set from the Co Op on hire purchase.

HelterSkelter1

Our next door neighbour put in a new kichen and bathroom before they sold. The buyers told me that he should have had the house rewired instead. Victorian house and old wiring as is ours.

They ripped out both the bathroom and kitchen very soon after moving in.

Looking round our house, everything apart from the white goods is second hand. And the white goods are pretty old now.

New neighbours across the road threw out the elderly widower's Ercol furniture!!!!! When they moved in. I was too late to retrieve it but to be honest I have no room. And have my mothers dearly loved Ercol furniture anyway!!

I think many people want their own new/modern kitchen and bathrooms, ripping out existing (no matter the age), and have new fitted.

If I moved I would probably want a new toilet. And maybe a bath as well unless they were brand new. That wouldn't have occurred to me to do years ago unless the toilet was cracked.

Our requirements and maybe standards have changed so much over the years.

When I look at all our inherited and second hand furniture, cutlery, china, my cotton striped sheets I used 60 years ago as a young teenager I often question my "standards". I see nothing wrong with them and have such memories attached.

I expect a youngster would despair of me. Indeed I have a friend in her 80s who is forever renewing her possessions. She must think I am quaint or batty.

Or just plain mean

everything i list for free on facebook marketplace is collected

If I moved I would probably want a new toilet

Even when we had hardly any money left after a move, I had to change the toilet seat! We couldn't have afforded to change the whole toilet system.

Cumbrianmale56

I can remember my parents having to rent recondioned televisions( ie television sets near the end of their life that had a few parts changed to keep them going) until I was 18. No one nowadays would consider having to pay a monthly fee for a television set that was barely working and needed to be repaired at least a month, but that's how things were. Finally they came into a bit of money when I turned 18 and obtained a new set from the Co Op on hire purchase.

We all rented our televisions!
No-one would have bought one because they did go wrong more frequently than they do now.

Norah

HelterSkelter1

Our next door neighbour put in a new kichen and bathroom before they sold. The buyers told me that he should have had the house rewired instead. Victorian house and old wiring as is ours.

They ripped out both the bathroom and kitchen very soon after moving in.

Looking round our house, everything apart from the white goods is second hand. And the white goods are pretty old now.

New neighbours across the road threw out the elderly widower's Ercol furniture!!!!! When they moved in. I was too late to retrieve it but to be honest I have no room. And have my mothers dearly loved Ercol furniture anyway!!

I think many people want their own new/modern kitchen and bathrooms, ripping out existing (no matter the age), and have new fitted.

I certainly wonder why people put in kitchens specific to their own personal taste (eg with plinth lights or with the doors made of something shiny surfaced). It's one thing to do a taste-specific kitchen if one is planning on keeping the house for years - but doing so when you're going to sell it soon does feel wierd to me.

No chucking-out perfectly good stuff from my houses LOL. The starter house clearly needed a proper kitchen put in it - very few tatty cheap units and a 1950's freestanding kitchen cabinet that is mine (all agreed in writing) but the vendor stole it. Cue for an MFI flatpack kitchen that my father put together and I bought one from the dearest range (ie wood doors - not veneered) and it had "had it" when I finally sold that house over 20 years later. Current house - it had had its day and was 1980s style (years into this century), had had a lot of wear and hadn't been planned for someone who expects to do a lot of experimental cooking and is "time and motion conscious" (ie me then). I couldn't believe someone would waste space in the planning of a small kitchen - but they had done so and I have had to do maximum space utilisation for all the stuff I have. So it may be that a new kitchen has been ripped out because of things like a common fault I've noticed in the planning of there's often a floor level sink unit not far from a corner of the kitchen and the previous owner has got a floor cupboard or two of wasted space to the side of the sink unit (that was one of the things wrong with my kitchen when I bought this house and I promptly included a decent-quality carousel cupboard for that space). Also it's a pretty small kitchen/no utility room and yet the wall cupboards only had 2 shelves - cue for my new ones have got 3 shelves.

The bathroom had to go too - it was still the original 1970s bathroom (complete with 1970s wall fire!) and a cheap shower had been put over the (higher than normal) bath. So again - a complete rip-out job.

That may help explain why new kitchens sometimes get ripped out. I still follow Rightmove and check out houses for sale - and the number of times I spot they've obviously recently swopped the kitchen - and there's a fair bit of wallspace available for putting in extra wall cupboards, but they haven't done so! Instead there's just a couple of nice shelves or just nothing on that empty wall space. Cue for me thinking "Such a shame! Wonder if it's possible to buy those missing wall cupboards to match - and, if it isn't, then I could see how a new kitchen might be ripped out". One can't expect a home-owner that wants to do a reasonable amount of cooking to be happy with a kitchen from someone who must have lived on ready meals heated in the microwave/never grown any of their own food/etc....as we'll just be wondering whether it was all microwave meals and/or eating out...but we intend to actually cook.

Our first colour tv was rented from Granada, as there was a shop in Durham. A lot of people did rent as a colour tv woukd cost an arm and a leg back in the early 70s.
The company was owned by a Martin Dawes, from Cheshire, who made £130M selling part of it and a further £70M when he sold the rest. Not a bad little earner?

Cariad the house my friend bought after her divorce was barely 7 years old - still under the Builder’s guarantee. She decided she’d like a few more wall units, but Wren said they’d already discontinued that range. It may be that a new kitchen is more attractive than a miss-matched one to many?

Georgesgran

Cariad the house my friend bought after her divorce was barely 7 years old - still under the Builder’s guarantee. She decided she’d like a few more wall units, but Wren said they’d already discontinued that range. It may be that a new kitchen is more attractive than a miss-matched one to many?

I can understand that - ie why someone would not want a mismatched kitchen and I have seen a noticeable number that are in houses for sale here and that must be what happened.

Doesn't surprise me when you say that a range might well have been discontinued only a few years later. So many kitchens aren't good quality enough to last a reasonable number of years imo and I guess the manufacturers know it and so stop production of a range quite soon. I do get gobsmacked at the occasional 1950's kitchen I see - as they still seem to be in good condition (despite being so old).

If there were missing units in a kitchen that was serviceable and reasonably to my taste = I know I'd look out to start with to see if I could see some nice shelving to make up the deficiency - rather than having to buy a whole new kitchen (whilst being prepared to grit my teeth reluctantly and do so). But I loathe housework and am unsure on that - because I walk through my house with a very "time and motion" pair of virtual glasses on to avoid every last little bit of housework that can be avoided.

The other thing that might explain chucking out a pretty new kitchen might be a visible boiler standing out like a sore thumb. If one has a utility room - then it might be out there anyway or capable of being relocated to there. But for a pretty small kitchen/no utility room a boiler might be very visible and just where one wants another wall cupboard.

I was fortunate to avoid that in my starter house - as the boiler was sited in the airing cupboard in the bathroom and so out of sight. My current house was a right old-fashioned hybrid mish-mash when I got it - but what boiler there was was located in a sort of walk-in store room accessed from an outside door and so I had that one ripped out and my new boiler put there in the same place. They asked if I wanted it positioned on what was a spare bit of wall in between my kitchen sink and back door - but I refused and said the replacement would be in the same spot (yep....it does take a noticeable time for the water to run hot from the kitchen hot tap #sighs....but it was the lesser of two evils imo) and I didn't want what I see a lot of in this area, ie pipes/pipes everywhere and I've been astonished at how many visible pipes a lot of houses in this area have (maybe because a lot of the houses have concrete floors here - rather than wooden ones?).

Georgesgran

Cariad the house my friend bought after her divorce was barely 7 years old - still under the Builder’s guarantee. She decided she’d like a few more wall units, but Wren said they’d already discontinued that range. It may be that a new kitchen is more attractive than a miss-matched one to many?

Most people probably care if the units match. Not a problem for us, my grandparents had old walnut Austrian pieces worked into our kitchen many years ago, still as pretty as ever (picture: our old walnut kitchen).

When we expanded the entire other wall was fitted bespoke, painted white. The worktops are different as well, wood and granite. Charming.

*Cariad, open shelves and space for freestanding cupboards is merely the current fashion in kitchens. Many people do not want wall to wall units.

I can remember, back in the 1970s my aunt saying how poor her young neighbours were with only an old pine dining table and not even able to afford a table cloth. I told her that far from being a sign of poverty, said table and chairs were the height of fashion, especially in an old house like her neighbours, it would have been expensive to buy and, while it was a style I admired, I couldn't afford i - tand, as for table cloths, they had gone completely out of fashion. !

Norah. What pretty Austrian wood work. They look like Art
Nouveau. Do you know the date they would have been made. Your kitchen sounds lovely.

Our first house was filled with second hand furniture, except the beds

Calendargirl

How odd that the bread was not wanted by anyone at the food bank.

I collect nearly out of date bread for the foodbank. Often there is absolutely loads of the stuff and occasionaly it has to be thrown away.

Fruit ad vegetables are very much valued.

I've always had success getting the British Heart Foundation to collect my unwanted furniture. It's all been good stuff with the right labels. They don't want any old rubbish to dispose of.