Buying stopgap items
One of the reasons I have some unfinished-looking home spaces and a scanty wardrobe is that I really don’t like to buy a stopgap piece of clothing or furniture or really anything. Humans in general already put so many discarded items into landfills and secondhand shops. It just seems more environmentally and budget friendly to wait for the perfect items.
I’ve made a couple of exceptions to this because sometimes it just isn’t practical to do without. One of our stopgap items is the sunroom sofa. We’ve done a bit of work to the sunroom, but it’s also a heavily used family space. Margaret’s paints and crafts and puzzles are in there. We now have two cats living in there as well, with all the messy things (cat boxes, food, hairballs) that go along with them.
Our previous sunroom sofa was one I’d bought secondhand for $60 when moving into my post-grad school ‘adult’ apartment. Since it was disintegrating and killing our backs in the process, it made the most sense to replace it with a ‘good enough for right now’ piece. We weren’t and aren’t remotely ready to renovate the sunroom for real.
Eventually, I plan to install Roman blinds on the large windows and have been eyeing fabrics from Colefax & Fowler to that end. The plan for the forever sofa is to cover it in the same fabric. However, it seems insane to bring premium fabric into the current cat habitat/child craft room where we sometimes eat pizza in front of the TV. So for now, we have this Amazon sofa that’s comfortable and looks just fine in the space.
I also had to cave on stopgap items in the upstairs bath. We’re a lot closer to renovating that than we are to the sunroom. That bath is in rough shape. It was harder to buy a couple new things for it knowing that hopefully later this year, that project will be underway. However, let’s be real, no one wants to use gross bath accessories in an already gross space. The one area where I refuse to budge is lighting. We’re getting these forever lights or nothing.
Aside from home decor, this is also something I hate to do with my wardrobe, but it’s sometimes necessary. One thing I’ve found really helpful for addressing serious wardrobe gaps in the short term is eBay. I’d much rather get a secondhand quality item than buy something cheaply made. A lot of my stopgap eBay finds have become forever pieces due to being well made and timeless.
When do you buy stopgap items and when do you wait for the forever piece?