The day I moved into the £110,000 flat, it filled up with clothes and accessories. The only piece of furniture I owned was an inflatable bed. Ballgowns are fabulous, but you cannot sit on them or serve dinner to your friends from them. I needed a bed and a sofa, and that was just for starters. The problem was that I had less than £2,000 at my disposal: enough for one designer sofa.

Like many ladies living in the Noughties, I have theatrical tastes. Minimalism is over and baroque extravagance is, thankfully, back in vogue. But soon after moving into my new home I discovered that I couldn’t afford to indulge my fashionable tastes unless I remortgaged: a Liberty Bespoke chaise longue costs £1,999.

The obvious route for first-time buyers in my position — in their early thirties with dwindling savings — is Ikea, but my one experience of buying a wardrobe there was so stressful that I vowed never to go back. It may be Scandinavian and cheap, but I find its designs average and soulless.

I wanted solidly built furniture, not flimsy flat-pack, but without the price tag of further debt. That ruled out antiques, but not second-hand. The usual sources of second-hand furniture are junk shops and classified ads in the local newspaper or websites such as eBay, and the odd item in a charity shop. However, many charities, such as the Salvation Army and Oxfam, also have dedicated furniture shops where they sell items donated to them, ranging from bed frames to grandfather clocks.

It was at just such a shop, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) on the Old Kent Road, that I made my first purchase: I found a fantastic reproduction double wardrobe from the 1930s. Four delivery men had to hike it up two flights of stairs, at one point contemplating taking out my door frame just to get it into my flat. But it was worth it to get something so well made, yet only £50.

Every Saturday I headed to the BHF shop to check out the latest donations. So, rather than horrid pine shelves to store my books and tea sets, I have a 1930s tallboy, a 1960s sideboard and a 1950s display case. One of my best bargains is a moss-green wing chair that in Heal’s would have cost at least £500, but I bought for £35. The addition of a few bright cushions updates it from old people’s home to stylish home.

I spent afternoons wandering around junk shops, which tend to buy furniture from house clearances and sell it on for a profit. There are two kinds of junk shops; the kind that pretend to be antique dealers and sell at inflated prices and ones that admit what they are and charge reasonable rates. You can tell the difference by the amount of dust: less dust, more mark-up. Trawling very dusty shops, I found an old kitchen cupboard for £40 that now acts as a bathroom cabinet and a £20 white, wrought-iron telephone table that now sits in the hall.

I adore retro styles, but you can also pick up traditional pieces and good- quality contemporary dining tables, bookshelves and sofas at furniture charity shops. Often they will deliver for a small fee, which usually varies according to the size of the item. A dust or a wash with a fabric cleaner is all that’s needed to give second-hand the appearance of brand-new.

Even regular charity shops often have small items of furniture in with the clothing and bric-a-brac. Be prepared to put in the effort, though: I once carted a card table across London on the train at the height of summer.

Charity shops also sell curtains, which you may not realise are an expensive purchase until you start shopping for them. My pink, fully lined bedroom curtains from Oxfam cost me £7 each, plus the cost of dry cleaning, as opposed to the £100-plus I would have had to pay for similar ones in John Lewis.

When it came to buying a bed, I wanted something special. On my budget, all the high street could provide was a couple of planks of plain wood knocked together. Desperate to deflate the blow-up bed, I went hunting for a frame. I found one in an antique shop called Blue Mantle on the Old Kent Road, for £250. It is iron, painted with a wood effect and art deco-style illustrations. Perfect.

In all, I bought 16 items of furniture for £1,300. That meant I could afford a brand new mattress for the bed, a cooker and a washing machine.

I have not completely abandoned the high street — TK Maxx is great for bed linen, lampshades and picture frames. And while I was shopping around, I discovered the world of ex-display. Many shops sell furniture that has been on show at a discount, and that’s how I got a rather delicious ivory suede two-seat sofa bed for £400 from a department store in Croydon. Be bold and politely ask staff if they know when the display is due to be changed, then pop back around that time to see what kind of deal they can do.

All it takes to furnish a flat on a tight budget is a bit of imagination, a bit of cheek and a bit of extra effort. It may take longer, but it is much more fun than pushing an awkward trolley around a soulless barn, then later attempting to locate the missing screws.

Blue Mantle, 020 7703 7437, www.bluemantle.co.uk; British Heart Foundation, www.bhf.org.uk; Oxfam, 0845 300 0311, www.oxfam.org.uk; the Salvation Army, 01933 441 086, www.salvationarmy.org.uk

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