Done on a Dime: How to Furnish a Retirement Apartment on $2,000

Thrift shops & second-hand stores yield furnishing treasures

Decorating with money is easy — all you need is taste and cash. I’m long on the first, usually short on the second.

Decorating on a budget can be frustrating — putting off purchases until you can afford them, cutting corners here and there — but it works if you’re the long-term planning type. Which I’m not.

Furnishing an apartment from scratch, within a month and with a very tight budget? That combination of bargain-hunting and mix-and-matching creativity is downright fun.

So when a friend’s father signed the lease on a 600-square foot retirement apartment, I jumped at the opportunity to furnish the place. Mike Riley had reconnected with his high school sweetheart and moved to Texas to resume their romance after decades apart. When she died, he moved back to Missouri to be near his children.

As Irish as his name suggests and a bit of a flirt, Mike liked the full meal service and busy schedule at a complex of retirement apartments. But he had nothing, no furniture at all. He had returned with his memories, a few boxes of keepsakes, and a dog named Susie. The rest was up to me. My assignment: Furnish the living room, bedroom, bath, kitchen, and a small office nook on a budget of $2,000. The deadline transformed my quest into a race against time.

The sofa was one of the few new items in the apartment. The carpet provided the color scheme.

To begin, I settled on a traditional style to suit Mike’s age and taste. My second priority was quality, no matter how tight the budget — no pressed wood allowed. Finally, I wanted the place to look finished before Mike moved in, so I wanted art and accessories as well as furniture. Since the apartment was white with neutral Berber carpeting, I planned to add warmth, color, and texture.

My initial plan was to work with the colors of a 5-by-8 red and blue Oriental carpet, with touches of camel in the pattern. I envisioned a lot of blue accents and, possibly, a blue couch.

My one firm instruction was “no used couches.” I couldn’t find any blue couches — or any others that went with the rug. Instead, I found a warm caramel-chenille sofa with tiny red accents on sale at J.C. Penney’s Home Store. I returned…