Real Ikea furniture is just horrible. It’s cheap in every sense of the word except the part about being affordable. And no self-respecting punk rocker is about to lounge around in a Swedish piece of crap like that. But that doesn’t mean your house can’t be fun, expressive, and nice. One of the greatest assets to the modern urban punk is stuff that other people just throw away. Here are a few handy tips on furnishing your home for free.

Couches.

Nothing a little patching can't take care of.

It is absolutely bewildering how many perfectly good couches get tossed every day. It looks dingy, beat up, or frayed. But look closer. Unless it’s got mold in it, it’s ready to go. A brand-new couch costs upwards of hundreds of dollars, but you can get a crappy free couch you find on the side of the road up to snuff with less than thirty dollars worth of fabric cleaner.

A lot of couches have made enemies with a cat at one point or another in their lives. Frayed edges are worth patching because the more people bump into or run against that end of the couch the more stuffing will fall out. Plus big gaping holes tend to get mold and mildew deep inside the cushion. All you need to remedy something like this is an old tee shirt or old pair of jeans you don’t want anymore, a needle, and some thread. Just cut a square of fabric big enough to cover the hole and sew it on. It doesn’t have to look professional or perfect, just patch that fucker. Anyone can do it. If you don’t know how to sew, you probably know someone who does. Ask around.

Alternatively there are various fabric bonding agents available on the commercial market. These polymers are usually just like glue except they’re designed for putting patches on fabric. It’s a bit more pricey, but usually more permanent, than sewing one on. Don’t forget to follow the instructions to the letter – products like this will occasionally emit toxic fumes. That will NOT get you high.

When you’re cruising around for couches, you’ll want to do it in a pickup truck. While I’ve had the semi-fun experience of hauling a couch across town with a buddy and nothing but the sweat of your brow, I wouldn’t recommend it. On a good day, in a major city, you can find several couches for free in one day.

Chairs.

If only part of the chair is busted... replace it!

The most essential part of any living space is a place to sit. Couches are good for communal activities or a stationary place to kick up your feet, but people will find they need to sit places that you don’t want to put a huge couch or Lay-Z-Boy. You also might find yourself short a few seats if too many people come over.

Folding chairs are a tremendous asset. They can take up very little room when you don’t want them, and they’re just comfortable enough to keep butts happy. Finding them is less easy than finding couches, because folding chairs are valuable no matter where you go. But keep an eye out for places that might have an excess. Often schools, colleges, churches, etc will throw out folding chairs that have gotten dented, scratched, or had their cushions removed. These chairs are still perfectly good, and if you hammer out dents, nail on some new cushions, and give it a good coat of spray pain these can become brand-new chairs!

Other kinds of chairs have the major downside of taking up a lot of space. They also have the upshot of usually being free. Just like folding chairs, regular chairs are often tossed out when something as superficial as the cushion has been damaged. One style of chairs sports a wood frame and a single cushion topped with leather bolted to the seat of it. When the leather breaks and stuffing comes out, most people take this as a cue to toss it. That’s when you come in, pick up the chair, rip off the all the leather and stuffing, nail a cheap-o piece of foam wrapped in some old jeans to the seat of it, throw on some spray paint and fabric paint, and call it a masterpiece! With a little work, that chair is more ready for use and better looking than ever before.

Also you’ll find chair pieces are extremely replaceable. With some nails and some wood glue you can combine a three legged chair and a two-by-four and make a four legged chair with one funny leg. That same two-by-four can replace an arm, or if you have more than one chunk of wood you can turn a stool into a chair with a back.

Tables.

An example of a wood plank put over two wooden horses

For the love of all that is holy do not buy or even put in your home a table made of glass or tiles. They are incredibly heavy, and unjustifiably delicate. Drunk people put feet right through them, which causes bits of sharp covered in blood to spray everywhere. Yes, I know, it’s a cool image. But trust me when I say you really don’t want to clean it up. And you really don’t want to deal with the drunkie who just broke your table and his foot.

The best kind of table for a punk rocker is just one contiguous hunk of material. If you can get just one tremendous piece of wood, that is one of the best tables you can have because it’s next to impossible to break. The downside is that this makes the table nearly impossible to move. They are also pretty hard to find.

A cheap – and potentially free – alternative is the tried and true combination of two wooden horses under a plank of wood. You take any old piece of wood that’s relatively flat and paint it however you’d like. Then you take two wooden horses – and I don’t mean little rocking horses, I mean the four-legged two-by-fours that you use to prop up wood while you’re cutting it – and put them underneath the wood. It’s as simple as that. It’s not very stable, and is highly prone to flipping over, but it works. For maximum stability jab some nails into that bitch and keep the plank right where you want it. The beauty of keeping it three separate parts, however, is that it can be broken down and put back up in seconds flat.

Containers.

This is a whole shelf unit made entirely out of milk crates

Milk crates are your best friend. They overflow around garbage cans, and usually you can get all you can handle as long as you look. If you look around downtown dumpsters you can usually find a few, and they’re a common sight in the back alleys behind restaurants. They’re designed to last forever but are so cheap to make many companies will pack their goods in them, send them off, and never expect to see them again. The people who receive the crates have nothing to do with them, and if you go to a grocery store in the wee hours of the morning you can usually find someone who will hand you a fat stack of them.

Using milk crates requires a little creativity. Obviously you can just fill them with stuff and stack them on top of each other like Lego bricks, but this makes getting to the bottom of the stack pretty difficult. Also, remember that they are not designed to take a lot of weight when they’re overturned, so sitting on them or using them as support structures is just begging for disaster. Instead, try to find some way to hang them on the wall, or fuse them together into a larger structure. If you’ve got the lumber and nails to spare, you can even try making a large wall of shelves from the crates.

Crates are also great for decorating. They take very well to spray paint, so feel free to splash them with color and patterns to your heart’s content. This is a great way to personalize and customize the furniture.

The long and short of it is this. You don’t need to go out and get new furniture, and you don’t need to live without comfort. All that new furniture is just shit that people nailed and glued together anyway, and all you’re paying for is the labor. If you’re willing to scrounge together the materials and put in the hours, you can live any way you want for pennies.