How much to pay for dresser for kids...?

[bright eyed]

Hi,
Having grown up in the age of Ikea, it's hard to make the transition to pay for "real furniture." We had one dresser set that we bought when DD was born (from ikea of course), but it died within a year and everyone I know who had that exact dresser had the same problem.

So, this time we'd like to get a nicer dresser that will get her through most of her youth.

It should be white, and at least 5 drawers...

What do you think a good price range is for this? Looking around it seems the real wood stuff starts at $500 and goes way up from there. The composite stuff is from $100 and up...We saw one we liked at Ikea for $250 -but don't want to throw down any more dough their way except for 50 cent hot dogs!
Any tips appreciated!

[bssc]

The IKEA Swedish meatballs are good.

Have you tried a consignment furniture store? They have gently used furniture. You can see what you are getting and it is more cost effective than new. The selection can be dated since the stuff was replaced with newer and trendier furniture.

[bright eyed]

they also have chocolate covered marshmallows in the grocery dept!

I can do a scan for consignment stores in my area, there are a lot of furniture outlets etc

just don't want to go all over town looking for this! but might be the only way...

i just looked on craigslist too, but nothing good came up...

[free4now]

Be aware that Ikea has different lines at different price ranges. Their low end stuff is pretty flimsy to be sure. I've got the Malm dresser ($150 IIRC) which is one of their cheapest and I would have to agree that it's not strong enough to stand up to a kid's abuse, although it serves my purposes well.

But you might look at their higher end lines and see if you can find something good. I think unless you're going to spend $1000 or so new you aren't going to find much better quality elsewhere.

Craigslist definitely is the place to find sturdy furniture at reasonable prices, and the kid is going to think whatever you buy is horribly dated and unstylish no matter what. Not being too caught up in the stylishness of the item will also help finding deals.

[W2R]

$25 at a garage sale, plus a can of white paint? That's what we did for our kid, though back in those days it was just $10 for the dresser.

Then, when she was a teenager we decided we wanted a new bedroom set and gave our perfectly good fiberboard double dresser and chest to her. As far as I know, she still has them twenty years later.

[Martha]

I second the garage sale or Craig's list. I recently got a dresser for my niece's son off of Craig's list for $15.00. Very sturdy and very ugly. I used white spray paint in gloss enamel. It came out surprisingly nice. It fortunately had all its knobs and they were wood so they got painted as well.

[TromboneAl]

Some samples from Craigslist:

$60



$150



$175



$250



$400



$150



$50

[bright eyed]

ok, i'll keep my eye on craigslist - i just hate the "trying" to be first, trying to get in touch, then driving - most people near me don't use it so it'd be a 30 minute drive to try to get something...a few goes at that and i might just put all her stuff in crates and stack it! ok, just kidding, her stuff is essentially in crates waiting for a real home...