Shopping in Florentine - south Tel Aviv
Reader ‘E’ from Tel Aviv writes:
‘right now, if you have any good tips on unique (cheap?) furniture stores / options in TLV, PLEASE let me know. Aren’t there some ratty places down in Florentine? Or is the stuff there terrible? Or, are there any other secret locations that have unusual (i.e. not Ikea!) stuff?‘
Florentine is my favorite furniture shopping area in Tel Aviv.
The area of Florentine starts on Herzl street where the I.M. Pei tower is (there’s a Golf Home there and a post office as well). Going in the direction away from the souk are the furniture stores. This area has a mix of everything - from the most exclusive Israeli designer furnishings to old mom and pop sofa places which have been around for 30 years.
We have 2 small boys (at the time 1 and 3) and had the ugliest sofas in the world which we covered with blankets from IKEA. We lived with this for 4 years until I basically lost my mind looking at those ugly things day in and day out.
Last year I had enough.
We had an extremely tight budget (6,000 NIS was the most we could justify for sofas that the kids would thrash). I wanted the denim sofas from IKEA, but they didn’t have them in stock and wouldn’t for months. I wasn’t willing to wait. I know we could have gotten leather - but I didn’t think it suited our space.
Down to Florentine went I, and in a day I went from store to store to store. Everyone is offering a price slightly less than the one before, and everyone can make whatever shape you want. They also all have the same fabrics - so at this point I just had to decide what place my instints trusted the most. The guy we ended up buying from promised the sofas in 4 days - he delivered them in 3 and they cost a total (including delivery) of 5,200 NIS.
Go to designer shops first. Figure out EXACTLY what you want. THEN go to the mom and pop and give them explicit directions. They’ll haggle and you’ll walk out with more sheckels in your pocket.
Are they designer sofas? No. But they are cute, the fabric is synthetic so they don’t stain easily and they wash well and they will last as long as we need them to.
I also made the shape identical to the one I wanted at IKEA, so when I get sick of looking at them I can go buy a slipcover.
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