What's your deal? Don't know how to style your space? Finally ditching your college decor and futon for grown-up furniture? Or just generally ready to upgrade that hand-me-down coffee table or cheap recliner sofa with something impeccably designed yet completely functional? Doesn't matter. The point is, life’s too short to be surrounded by ugly things in your home. If you've got the money, spend big on one of the designer options on this list. If you don't, pick one of the more affordable stores. If you're really, really broke, well, get out of here and go hit an estate sale or dig on Facebook Marketplace. Just get busy!
The best time to start designing your dream home is right now, this second, and we've made it easy for you. Our design experts have selected the best online furniture stores in order to point you in the right direction, toward all the worthy high-end brands as well as the affordable high-quality retailers. Digitally meander to find everything you need: a not-ugly recliner, a fun outdoor piece, a luxury sofa, an executive office chair, or even a decor accent of yet-undiscovered functionality. Time for you—with our expert help—to build that dream home. These are the best online furniture stores to shop.
West Elm traffics in neutral, earthy tones, but you'd be mistaken to call its styles minimalist. The detailing, from the leathers to the wood grains to the fabrics—and the many brushed bronze and burnished gold accents—sets it apart. Our commerce director loves West Elm's big sectional sofas, but there's something for everyone in the catalog.
Founded by Nana Quagraine—a Brooklyn-based, South African-raised, Ghanaian-born businesswoman—54kibo is where you ought to if you want something more artisanal than what these other big-box options provide. Based in the States, the company looks to the 54 countries of Africa for most of its contemporary furniture, working with about 50 product designers from or working on the continent. There's a hand-crafted look to everything, and joy that comes through in a lot of the pieces' use of texture and color.
My favorite examples are things like this woven pendant light, the green velvet accent chair in this image, or these Ghanaian carved side tables.
I buy my toilet paper, Hanes T-shirts, underwear, and Wrangler jeans in bulk on Amazon, so checking out the home section wasn't that far of a stretch. And I'm not just saying this because my corporate overlords gave me "Amazon re-education training." (For legal reasons, that was a joke.)
Is Amazon's home section amazing? No. It's the contemporary version of the big box store model. There's a lot of mediocre furniture with weird photoshopped images.. but there's an equal amount of well-priced finds. This Christopher Knight Home sofa is a great find. There's a million mid-century sofas that are all good enough to do a job. There's a Poly & Bark storefront that offers all sorts of good furniture.
What I'm trying to say is this: It's OK to buy furniture on Amazon. It fits your budget, and no one is really going to notice.
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If you're re-doing a space, chances are you want a hero item—something big, something luxurious. Chances are you won't mind splurging on a $5,000 dining table or a $2,000 hand-woven area rug if you know it'll last, it's ethically and sustainably made, and it looks heirloom-worthy. Arhaus makes furniture like that: statement pieces with high-quality fabrics, and all of them well worth the price.
Maybe you don't want MoMA reissues. Maybe you want real-deal designer furniture. In the spirit of sportsmanship, we'll warn you right now: It's so f*cking easy to get addicted to 1stDibs. This online marketplace is where designers and sellers connect directly with buyers to discuss rare pieces. It's the place to find exclusive one-offs. There's Gehry chairs, thousands of vintage Made in the U.S.A. Widdicomb pieces, and gems from real designers who built individual legacies.
Yes, the prices on 1st Dibs can get astronomical when you're looking at culturally significant pieces. This Becchi sofa is $11,000. A Dali lips sofa is $500,000. An Egyptian Sarcophagus mask (looks cursed to me) might sell for $825,000. You can buy a fireplace from a French chalet for $3.2 million. It gets wild on there.
But... there are so many normal people finds on the site. Sort for under $2,500, commit time theft, and scroll the site while you're at work. This Antique French plate rack, a Soviet-era bar cart, a leather cased travel alarm clock, a working Olivetti typewriter... I could do 10,000 words on 1st Dibs. Please join me and find something unique.
CB2 is our go-to for contemporary, midcentury-inspired design. Everything looks classic but comes with all the benefits of modern shopping, like easy shipping, quick turnarounds, and affordable designs. But what we love most about CB2 is that each piece is made with premium materials. Every bar cabinet is crafted from solid wood. Every sofa is perfectly firm. Every marble table is substantial. It's modern online-focused furniture that's actually made to last.
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My ideal home is in a Ralph Lauren catalog. In fact, every one of my ideal homes would just be pulled from that man's brain. My full-time home would have the classics of the brand—the Duke Bar, this Pedestal Dining Table, the Writer's Chair. My beach home has the summer essentials, and my country home is just a copy of the RRL floor at the men's flagship store in Manhattan.
If you have the money to live my dreams, please furnish your entire home with Ralph Lauren Home designs.
Herman Miller is a name with prestige. The brand sells iconic designs like the Aeron chair, Noguchi table, Marshmallow sofa, and Eames lounge chair. With such stature naturally comes steep price tags, but if you just made partner, it's time to splurge on some furniture. And the stuff doesn't just look good; it's also built to stand the test of time.
What began as a husband-and-wife duo's sofa-centric brand is now a go-to stop for a tight catalog of comfortable seating. Albany Park offers a handful of styles and the furniture to match. If you want to keep it simple, buy a full living-room set in the same style. If you trust your interior design ability, mix and match.
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Wayfair is a catchall for furniture, where you'll find pieces for the outdoors and any room imaginable indoors. Like Amazon Home, it carries a lot of basic, no-flair brands (like its own home brand, which is called, go figure, Wayfair Basics), but it also offers higher-priced options from more revered designers. The site is somewhat chaotic, but it's also in a seemingly constant state of sales events, so it's worth the investigative effort.
Maiden Home carved out its niche in the beige-and-balmy category, but now it's expanding into something more versatile and luxurious. "Resilient" and "responsible" best describe the brand, which thrives on the craftsmanship of North Carolina artisans and the natural beauty of their hand-selected, sustainably sourced materials.
Floyd got big online for its platform bed, and ever since it's been expanding into sofas, tables, and storage pieces. They all have a clean, simple, cozy look that works in a wide variety of homes. Most of the stuff is also easy to assemble and modular, like Floyd's shelving system, which is super attractive and configurable to your liking. It's as good as contemporary design gets.
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If bold color isn't your thing, BR Home, the new home-decor wing of Banana Republic, might be more your speed. Yes, there is color throughout, but the brand's new venture is making great use of texture. Think beige bouclé, linen, and faux fur with the occasional pop of richly colored velvet. You can create layers with monochromatic pieces. It's a new option but one that a lot of people will come to love.
Soho Home is our champion for funky, rounded furniture and decor. Think of your favorite little co*cktail bar. ('Cause I know they exist in every city now.) Soho Home is that, but it's in your home.
This at-home wing of the famous private members' hotel Soho House uses fabrics that hold color really well. There's a lot of velvet, so much velvet that there's a Soho Home Guide to Velvet on-site, and it all pops.
In addition to velvet, the brand does a great job of incorporating texture and eye-catching material. It's most evident in the bar furniture collection. Everything on the site is made to liven up a room. Get one piece to give a corner something to think about, or break out the checkbook, dive in, and go Maximalist. Either way, it's tough to f*ck this stuff up.
Thuma got famous for its easy-to-assemble bed frame, and it's applying that formula to more and more furniture pieces. We've awarded the brand in our Home Awards two-years running, and we imagine it'll keep expanding and piling up the trophies.
With that ease of assembly you get a clean, minimal look. This isn't statement furniture, it's solid fill-out-the-apartment stuff.
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Saatva is the Internet’s premier luxury mattress and bedding brand. Apart from incredibly comfortable mattresses, it also offers bed frames (which we love), benches and ottomans with storage, and cool chairs that add the perfect accent to any space. What makes the brand stand out is that it sells high-quality products for a fair price. While nice mattresses are known to be expensive, Saatva won't rip you off. And the customer service is unbeatable. So if you want to upgrade your mattress or your entire bedroom, you can do so right here.
The Citizenry's furniture doesn't come from a factory. The brand works with small-time artisans to offer, for example, bath furniture made from hinoki wood in Japanese workshops, leather tanned by a family in Portugal, Moroccan rugs, and a sofa handmade in California. The Citizenry finds the best makers across the world and sticks them all in one place, resulting in a site with an eclectic but broadly appealing design language.
For classic outdoor furniture, you can't beat Neighbor. It's all teak and aluminum cut into tasteful midcentury shapes and upholstered with performance fabrics. If you're building a full outdoor space, shop here.
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While Castlery offers every style from classic to midcentury modern to contemporary, its furniture is intended to outlast style trends—which is why the brand creates pieces of striking craftsmanship in durable materials.
If you're looking for furniture for the yard or patio, no company produces better, more durable outdoor chairs than Tupelo Goods. Made in the U.S.A., they come in high-design modern shapes... The Frank Gehry inspiration is clear as day. But since these are crafted from marine-grade polyethylene, they're the easiest chairs you'll ever have to care for. Dirt? Hose it off. Spilled food and drink? Hose it off. Sun fading and discoloration? Doesn't happen.
Plus, they can be used in the pool.
