How to save sending old furniture to the dump

First things first, apologies for my sudden lack of posts. I promise I have 2 good excuses which will both provide more content for this blog.

1. We bought and moved into a new house and we have been doing it up over the last few months

2. I am expecting!

Both have kept us a little preoccupied but I finally have a bit of down time to write.

This weeks post will be about how I managed to save 2 damaged leather sofas from the dump. The key? Staging!

The house came furnished which worked out well as rental accommodations in Ireland are typically furnished so we have not had to buy any of our own furniture so far. Once we moved in we took advantage of the January sales and ordered some new (gasp I know) furniture. Our sofas are due to arrive this month and so we will shortly be out of space for the existing sofas.

I had put ads up for the existing sofas 2 months ago on various local facebook pages. First we tried to sell them for a nominal fee but weren't getting any bites. Then we resorted to putting them up for free and expanded our ads to numerous free-cycling groups and still no bites.

Having given up, we then contacted St. Vincent de Paul (a local charity), who came by to view them and refused to take them as they needed to be shop floor ready. The larger sofa had a big tear in the back cushion and the leather had some discolouration.

At the same time we contacted a leather repairman to get a quote to see how much it would cost to repair (so that we could sell on or donate), and unfortunately was a bit more than we were willing to spend (250-300 to repair the rip and 800 to re-dip to repair the discolouration = 1,100€ all together).

Feeling defeated, hubby rang a removal company which was going to cost us 110€ for collection and delivery to the dump.

They were due to collect Friday and on Thursday night I was having a sleepless night (possibly because I couldn't face throwing away the sofas) and had a brain wave...I should stage the photos.

For those who don't know, staging is a technique for selling houses (or individual items) quickly and for more money. This is done by showing the property in the best light which will appeal to the most buyers. It includes neutralising, decluttering, de-personalising, applying props (cushions, throws, plants, lighting etc) and taking nice photos. Basically show the buyer what's possible and allow them to picture themselves in the space - people are visual and get distracted by other people's personal effects and tastes.

You will see the difference in the 2 ads below and judge for yourselves.

1st ad, no offers in 2 months

2nd ad, 12 offers in the first day (including offers to pay), collected a few days later (albeit the guy is using them for parts as he is a furniture maker - at least I know it won't be used for a year or 2 and then sent to the dump without recycling).

1st ad photos:

Shown separately, no staging done, highlights the damage in the second of 2 photos

2nd ad photos

Shown together and in a sitting room context, staged with cushions, throws, lighting, plants and a rug. Picture taken in daylight with both lights in the room on. Still highlights the damage but in the later of numerous photos. The ad description also outlined the damage and the estimate received to repair the damage.

So to reiterate - this method should work for all types of furniture not just sofas:

1. Stage the item in the best possible light using the techniques above

2. If selling: try to make minimal repairs yourself ie: if you can paint it, give it a fresh coat and/or change the hardware - you will sell for more and faster than if you didn't make the updates - you may also find that after you have made the updates you will want to keep it yourself!

3. Take the best photos possible, use a proper camera if you have one, frame the object in a well lit room and try to make sure no other items come into the frame

4. Post the ad on multiple sites like local facebook buy and sell groups/marketplace, done deal, adverts.ie, free-cycle groups if free etc

5. Include a positive description with keywords that people would likely search for as the first few words. Sites like kijiji only use the first 2 sentences or so for their keyword searches so use them wisely

6. If the above fails, get a quote for professional repair to see if it's reasonable enough to repair rather than dump - again once repaired you may find that you'd prefer to keep it yourself

7. And if that fails, contact local charity shops to see if it can be donated there

8. Sleep easy knowing that you have made every effort to divert valuable resources from the landfill

Just to make you think about the lifecycle of a sofa and why I tried so badly to deter from the dump:

A sofa is made up of a frame (wood, plastic, metal), casing (polyester fiber, leather, imitation leather, cotton), and cushion (some type of foam). These materials had to be harvested/mined/processed. In the case of leather, animals had to die. Chemical dyes used to dye to the colour preferred. The materials then needed to be transported (heavy materials = larger CO2 impact). The sofa then needed to be constructed (chemical glues/more materials). Transported again to the store. Stored in the store (electricity/heating to run the store). Transported again to your home. Used for a few years. Dumped (incinerated releasing more harmful chemicals into our 1 shared atmosphere or possibly recycled).