Last year, Gerardo and Rita Luna upgraded from their roughly 2,700-square-foot home in Oxnard, Calif., to a much larger house in nearby Santa Paula, paying $2.4 million. The couple, who own four automotive repair facilities, said they had been looking for a quieter place, where they wouldn’t be able to “shake their neighbors’ hands through the window,” Mr. Luna said. The Santa Paula estate, on 6 acres, fit the bill perfectly.
The only problem: how could they possibly furnish such a large property? They didn’t have nearly enough furniture to fill the nearly 7,000-square-foot house, and what they did have didn’t fit the French Country style of their new home. Plus, they knew that global supply-chain issues would likely make buying new furniture difficult and time-consuming. Instead, Mr. Luna proposed an unusual solution: They offered to buy all of the seller’s furniture, although the heavy draperies and plaid upholstery didn’t exactly fit their taste.
