Black Friday is three weeks away, and most retailers will start their sales well before then.

So for the next two editions, I want to talk about the part of home design almost nobody covers: shopping.

Designers call it sourcing, and it's a big part of the job. But when people furnish their own homes, it's the step they skip over because it isn't glamorous.

Decorating has rules and shelves of books written about it. Sourcing barely gets a mention, even though the way you shop has a huge effect on how your home looks and how well it works.

This week is about what to do before the sales start. Next week, I'll get into how to tell a good deal from something that's only cheap.

Shop with a plan

Before you buy anything, you need two things.

The first is a furnishing plan, which is your floor plan with the furniture drawn in. It gives you size constraints: how big the sofa can be, and how long the dining table needs to be.

You won't nail exact numbers straight away, and a range is fine.

"A rectangular dining table between 1.6 and 1.8 metres, to seat four to six" is a far smaller search than "a dining table."

There is an endless amount of furniture out there, and a constraint stops you drowning in it.

The second is a design concept, which is the big-picture direction for the look and feel you're after. You might find that a solid oak or walnut dining table suits it better than a glass or marble top.

Now you're looking for a 1.6 to 1.8 metre table in warm oak or walnut, and the search gets much narrower. When the right one comes along, you'll know it.

Don't stop at the first three tables

Some things can't wait. If you've just moved in and your mattress is on the floor, buy a bed frame you like within your budget so you can sleep comfortably.

Almost everything else can wait. One table and a couple of chairs, even cheap ones from your old place, will see you through for a while.

Most people do the opposite. They ‘need’ a sofa, so they visit two big-box stores, scroll past a few Instagram ads, and pick one of those.

The search ends before they've seen enough to know what they actually like.

If something grabs you early and you know you have to have it, go ahead and buy it. The problem is ending the search because you're tired of looking.

I shop for clothes the same way. I know my style and my size, and I keep looking until I find something I love.

Sometimes it's expensive, and sometimes it's cheap, but I don't buy whatever happens to be in front of me, because that's how you end up with a random look in your wardrobe and in your living room.

Bookmark, shortlist, then wait

Look around online, in-store, or both. Every time you see something you like, bookmark it.

If you're not sure where to start looking, the Shop inside my Room Visualizer™ app has more than 600 furniture and homewares stores to browse. You can try the whole app for a week for $1.

After a few days or a couple of weeks, you'll have somewhere between five and ten saved options each for the dining table, the chairs, and the sofa.

Choosing from that shortlist is far easier, and you can start testing which pieces work together.

Then, for anything that isn't urgent, narrow it down to your top three and wait.

Most mid-range retailers run several sales a year, and Black Friday is usually the biggest of them.

I do this with the clothing brands I wear, too. Their full prices are higher than I'd like, so I wait for a sale and buy the pieces I'd already decided on.

That's why now is the right time to start. Spend the next two weeks building your shortlist, so that when the sales arrive, all that's left is to buy the things you already chose.

Cheers,
Reynard

P.S. Sourcing is the Z in my C.O.Z.Y.™ Method: Zero in on the Right Pieces. Inside my Practical Home Design course, I walk you through building the furnishing plan and design concept that makes shopping this straightforward.