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The amount of usable furniture available to the person with an extremely low-cost budget is limited. In this price  range attractiveness depends on good lines, smart colours, and unusual textures, which can often compensate for the lack of costly materials and processes.
Unfinished wood furniture, the most commonly used low-cost type, can be found in most of the large department stores, which usually carry a fairly varied selection of chests, tables, chairs, bookcases, and hanging wall shelves, in non- period, modern, and early American styles. Tables, cupboards, and chairs intended for the kitchen can often be finished in a fashion suitable for the living room.
Sometimes inexpensive porch furniture is available which can be used successfully indoors to supplement other types. For example, a good wicker chair adds textural interest.
Second-hand furniture stores, junk shops, and antique shops provide a possible source of supply for a person with little money but time to spare. Diligent search may bring as reward basically good tables, chairs, or even sofas and love seats that can be satisfactorily reworked. These are particularly suitable in old- fashioned rooms.
Homemade furniture of rectangular non-period or modern types can sometimes be made by the owners. An amateur can build tables, benches, bookshelves, cabinets, or anything that does not have drawers or upholstery. A carpenter or woodworker can usually duplicate simple pieces from photographs. Prospective home makers should collect pictures of articles which they might like to have copied.
Mail-order catalogs should also be consulted by those working with a low budget. Reputable mail- order companies sometimes sell the products of the best manufacturers without identifying the brands; the volume sold enables them to reduce the prices.
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