cost of furnishing a new build

Remember not everything has to be done at once.

get the floors down, get blinds/windows covered for privacy, ensure you have a bed, a sofa, a cooker and everything else comes after.

not sure if items have drastically gone up in price (maybe a few percent for inflation) but labour has gone through the roof and there’s a pent up demand meaning you might have to wait longer to get trades people to do stuff.

A lot will depend on your flooring choice IMO.

Tile flooring, especially large ones which are in fashion now, will be costly as labour is in short supply and they require more care to install. Around €30m2 for tiler.

Wood laminate flooring has gone up in price too but usually you buy from shop with install as part of deal.

Carpets around €30m2 fitted for good quality product.

Furniture is totally down to taste and your budget.

I take it that the kitchen including appliances is already included. If yes then €15k is definitely sufficient. You can save a lot of money if you choose laminate and PVC flooring instead of getting wooden floors, tiles or expensive carpets.

If it were me I’d invest in the flooring and kitchen appliances and if that stretched the budget get everything else second hand. I’m currently sitting on a lovely finline couch that we picked up for free on adverts over three years ago. We will replace it eventually but it’s lovely for now.

Just realized I completely left out tiling. Bit surly a new build is tiled. Ours was

I'd agree with most of that but I do think there is an argument for getting the best quality washing machine you can. It might end up being used daily more than once, especially if you have kids. We paid a bit more than 1000 for ours, and although it will probably spontaneously combust the minute I write this, 10 years of relatively heavy usage in and it hasn't missed a beat.

Dishwasher I'm in two minds about - we also payed close to 1000 at the time, and while like with the washing machine, it hasn't missed a beat, a cheaper one might just as well have lasted just as long.

All that small stuff listed above is cheap as chips in Ikea, e.g. they have a €1 toilet brush.

As you are starting out I would highly recommend Adverts. Don't look at it as 2nd hand. There is a lot of quality stuff out there that you couldn't afford new. Nothing stays new. It is taste dependent but you would be amazed the amount of new goods at knock down prices due to over stock. Get tools, no matter it is a new build you will need tools. Good hammer drill is vital as is a good screw driver set. You will pick up this stuff for less than half price on Adverts and free too.

I know "brown" furniture is not popular but I got a 150 year old rosewood wardrobe that was hand carved for less than an Ikea wardrobe. It seems like madness to me but I get the taste issue.

5500k it cost me to furnish the kitchen, sitting room, the master bedroom, and there is a box room that I put a bunk bed with double bottom in with a locker, chest of drawers plus TV for visitors, all the furniture was 2nd hand(mattresses I bought new 900, 550 for my bed 350 for the bottom bunk and the supplier threw in the top single mattress for free as it was standard, ex display, and it's not necessarily the most comfortable mattress either, the actual cost price was 80 euro, but it does the job)

I paid 2475 for appliances (electric cooker, washing machine, tall fridge, tall freezer, kettle, toaster, hoover, iron all bought in one store, actual value of goods were 3100 before reductions made and most were already on sale, it pays to shop around and buy in bulk) microwave and dryer were bought second hand for 80 euro, 3 televisions, smart TVs, 3 for 320, second hand with 30 months warranty from a place that sells pre-owned stuff,

Furniture for both the kitchen and sitting room(including a grand office desk) were bought through various sellers in FB marketplace, including a shelving unit that I put at the bottom of my stairs to put the broadband and home phone on, amongst other things, it's holds all sorts lol, toolbox, unopened boxes of trinkets, goodness knows what else.

Kitchen furniture includes, table with 4 chairs, movable island, 3 stand alone cabinets/sideboards (lack of actual kitchen cabinets, cheapest option at the time, I've lived here six years now, and I just recently acquired a second hand kitchen that suits my needs for 500 euro, but the missus likes the setup as it is and new units are in the shed gathering dust lol )

Sitting room furniture including the office desk, 2 two seaters, and two recliner armchairs, coffee table, TV unit, sideboard, tall narrow shelving unit, bookcase, and cabinet,

now I must add nothing matches, different types of wood, finishing etc, but we like it, we keep meaning to paint stuff to make the furniture unified, but as we discussed it'll take the character away from our home, and everything works, we keep looking at stuff on marketplace, adverts, pre-owned furniture places etc, thinking we could swap stuff out, but as I say we are happy with it all, nothing has ever given us trouble, bar one of the TV's decides to freeze and turn itself on and off randomly about once a week,

The upstairs of our house already had solid pine flooring, so we got a chap in to sand them down, treat and seal then at a cost of 475 euro, downstairs we put a different lino down in the kitchen, hallway and sitting room, there was already some form of hard plastic grey tiles down, we didn't want to go through the hardship of pulling those up, so that's why we chose lino(although wooden flooring could have been put down over them), we put it down ourselves and it roughly cost 500 euro for the material, it good stuff near 6 years down and not a mark or no fade,

The other half likes net curtains, so all the rooms bar the bathrooms and kitchen got net curtains, 120 euro for nets and materials, put them up myself, then those six rooms got regular, blackout curtains, total cost including railings, curtains and materials 250 euro, put up myself,

kitchen got a Venetian blind, 75 euro supplied and installed, as the bathrooms have privacy glass we didn't bother putting anything in those windows,

Spent less than 150 getting the bathroom up to scratch including a cabinet with mirror, a few shelves, etc,

Probably another 300 or thereabouts spent on cutlery, plates, pots and pans,

So including the initial 5500k I mentioned at the beginning of my post, 2k approximately that was spent on the bathroom, curtains, blinds, flooring, etc it cost us 7500 euro (that doesn't include the 500 I spent on those kitchen units recently) all in, I know we saved money by doing some labour ourselves, I don't know, probably saved ourselves 2500k ,

We have 2 other rooms(double bedroom and utility/sunroom), that we managed to kit out for 1000 euro, so that brings the total to just under 11k, including all the savings ,

So your 15k is actually a realistic figure, Preloved furniture, etc can be a lot better than the flat pack cheap stuff out there nowadays, I'll admit the unit I mentioned that's in our hallway is a flat pack type of furniture, it's the most unsteady piece we have, there is always a screw coming loose or something needs to be popped back into place lol, but everything else we acquired is proper carpentry made furniture,

Also like I mentioned when it comes to white goods just shop around and get the best prices, don't do it online go to a physical store, have a chat with a salesperson, tell then what you need and that your budget is whatever, in our case I pitted two stores against one another, told them that one store was offering the goods at a certain price and then they came down in price, going with the store that offered me the best deal, including warranties, etc... As I said though our stuff is a mix and match, but if you look hard enough on second hand sites or second hand stores you could and can find matching furniture...

Best of luck on your endeavours and your new home...

I think IKEA couches are great if you have kids/pets because you can wash and replace the covers for most of them. Even if the particular model gets discontinued there are third party companies that make covers for all the old models.