Reuse - furnishing a house

With settlement looming, one of my lists has involved refurnishing the house on an extremely tight budget **. The first thing we did was investigate and order the most energy efficient appliances we could afford within our budget (one of which was a 5 star fridge). After that was out of the way, I've moved onto furniture with the $$$ that remained.

My extreme reaction to mold initially ruled out secondhand furniture. Since most opshops smell like mold or mildew they send me off into an immediate asthma attack and can also induce numbness in my left arm. But at the same time, I didnt want to buy Chinese made mdf rubbish because of a) it's environmental impact and b) most of the stuff smells or offgasses toxic nasties.

Instead I started to investigate secondhand shops. I've managed to find a few different ones who could tell me whether products smelled, had water damage or any mildew / mold apparent. Their shops are also smell free to me, so no reaction. And voila our secondhand mission began. Since the house was built in the late 1930's and has beautiful art deco features, I've been focusing on art deco furniture or furniture that is vintage from the 1940's/1950's that has history or a story. And I have to say I've had a ball :-)

Last weekend I picked up the above beautiful antique bedside tables - they are from the Grand Hyatt during the 1930's.

I've also collected some stepped and plain bookcases as well as secondhand chairs. The secondhand chairs need painting to match our new house better (I like purple but not on a chair).

This Depression Glass bowl was thrown in as a freebie, and who can forget our gorgeous vintage blackboard for Little B. I just couldnt resist even if its a want not a need :-)

It's been quite fun searching for all this furniture and been extremely budget friendly. The better bargain I can get the more $$$ I have to spend on other aspects of either the renovation or furnishings for the house.

** We had to refurnish the house because we had to throw all our furniture, clothes etc out after their exposure to our moldy house