I started my adult life in a one-bedroom apartment with the plastic milk crates I had used as bookshelves in my dorm room, a powder blue crushed velvet and chrome sofa with glass and chrome coffee table (both castoffs from a relative), and a 24-inch round drop-leaf unfinished pine table and two chairs that I stained myself. With my first paycheck, I bought a queen mattress that I put on the bedroom floor. It was months before I invested in a beautiful mahogany four-poster rice bed that we still have.
My dad gave me the best advice ever: Don’t waste your hard-earned money on that $300 brown-and-cream plaid sofa and loveseat set from Sears that will never die or you will be tied to that ugliness, especially when kids come along and you reason that you might as well keep the crap until they’re old enough not to spill milk and Cheerios all over it. Instead, buy fine furniture one piece at a time even if you have to sit/eat/sleep on the floor for a while. (And don’t have kids.) He was right. Before long, I had some lovely things, most of which either we have today or our son has.
When our son graduated from the academy and moved to GA, he took all of the very nice Ethan Allen furniture that came with/furnished the casita of our new house (bed/dresser/nightstands/desk/lamps/sofa couch) along with a Persian rug, set of china, bar ware, and everyday dishes that we could spare. The Christmas before graduation, we gifted him with everything he needed to start his kitchen (knives, food processor, manual pasta maker, Instant Pot, utensils, etc.). I gave him the same advice my dad gave me and he is following it. It’s better to acquire quality things slowly than to buy cheap things just to fill the empty spaces.
There is a lot of satisfaction in discovering your own style and furnishing your surroundings with things you love.