One of the most frequently asked questions we get asked when exploring a design with a client is: “how much is this going to cost?”

That’s a totally understandable question, but not one that is always easy to answer. Are you replacing just one or two furniture items and working with existing furniture? Or are you buying all new furniture? If you are buying all new, what quality level are you expecting? How custom do you want it to be? How fast do you need it to arrive? All these factors (and more) affect the final price tag.

In past blogs we’ve explored what a kitchen or bath remodel might cost, as well as what built-ins might cost. Today we are going to try to shed some light on what it might cost to furnish a living room. To do that, we grabbed one of our projects to provide a case study of how much you *might* expect to spend on an updated living room space.

This client moved into a cozy downtown condo, and wanted to turn it into a great urban hangout for hosting friends for dinner! We pulled a design together for the dining room, living room, entry, and master bedroom, but today we’ll just focus on the living room area:

Being a small urban condo, the number of items we needed in order to furnish the living room was pretty straightforward – in this case, just fourteen elements. Here’s the design we presented to the client for the living room area:

Since we tend to shop retail for our clients (sourcing from places where they can shop and buy for themselves) the items came from places like Crate & Barrel, Dania, Lamps Plus, and Overstock. As you can see in the list below, the total cost to furnish this small condo living room was about $7,000. Bear in mind that this list does *NOT* include things like shipping or delivery costs, taxes, or other work like paint and labor:

Whether $7000 feels like a big investment or a small one depends on *your* budget. What I can tell you is that there are already a number of “budget” items in this design – it’s much more common for the accent chairs to be in the range of $500 to $1500 a piece, for example. Just a few adjustments to the elements and the total costs easily bumps up to nearly $10,000:

That said, some of our clients would balk at a $7000 price tag, so if you love this look but want to see if we can get that overall cost down, then keep your eyes peeled – I tackle that in my next blog post! Stay tuned! 👀

Meanwhile, if you want to see Before & After pics from this space, take a look at our portfolio post here. And if you’re ready to start tackling your own space, we’d love to help! Check out our Design Helplines to get started!

Until next time, may your home always be happy!