Furniture
Buy and sell furniture in Panama.
Furniture in Panama is still sold mostly in sets: a five-seat living room set made of a three-seater and a two-seater, a dining table with six chairs, a bedroom set with the bed, two nightstands and a chest of drawers. Those sets turn up new from furniture makers and pre-owned, often broken up piece by piece by people moving house. A cedar or teak wardrobe from a local carpenter sits next to flat-pack board furniture that was assembled once in a tower apartment, and the two age very differently.
Beds, wardrobes, sofas and dining sets, branch by branch:
frames, bunks and headboards sit under beds, where the mattress you already own decides which frame fits. Wardrobes, chests of drawers and glass-front display cabinets go to cabinets, the storage you add once the built-in closet runs out. The living room set and the chairs, from a recliner to an office chair, are in sofas and chairs, and tables takes the dining set, the desk and the small tables beside a sofa.
Solid wood against board, and the set against the single piece:
most new mid-price furniture is MDF or particleboard with a printed or veneer finish, sold flat in a box and held together with cam fittings. It is light, cheaper and sharp on day one, but the fittings loosen every time it is taken apart, and the bottom edges swell wherever the mop reaches them. Solid wood from a carpenter, in cedar, teak or pine, weighs far more and costs more, yet it can be sanded, re-glued and refinished for decades. That is also its weak point: unsealed timber is what drywood termites go for. A set costs less than its pieces bought separately and everything matches; single pieces let you size each one to the room. Before you commit to a three-seat sofa or a wardrobe that does not come apart, measure the door, the turn in the hallway and, in a tower, the service lift.
The price of a five-seat living room set, and what the cushions do to it:
a new five-seat living room set runs from about $700 to $1,400 at mainstream furniture stores, and a seven-piece dining set, table plus six chairs, starts near $1,000. Used, the frame rarely sets the price; the upholstery does. A set with firm cushions and clean fabric from a household leaving the country often goes for $250 to $450, while one with sunken seats and stains is really being priced as a frame for the upholsterer. Wooden dining sets hold their value better than upholstered furniture, because a scratched tabletop can be refinished and a chair seat recovered for little money.
Drywood termites, swollen board and tired foam in a used piece:
tap solid wood along the legs, the back and the underside of the drawers. A hollow sound, pinholes, or small piles of sand-like pellets on the floor beneath mean drywood termites are working inside, and because they need no contact with soil, the piece carries them straight into your home. Unless you are ready to have it treated, leave it. On board furniture, look along the bottom edges for swelling and flaking, push the top corner sideways to see whether the carcass stays square, and ask whether it has been dismantled before. On a sofa, sit in every seat, push on the arms to feel for a loose frame, and check the seams and underside for the dark specks bed bugs leave.
Selling a living room or bedroom set before a move:
photograph each piece in daylight and then the whole set, and price both, because plenty of buyers want only the six chairs or only the bed. Give width, depth and height, the material, and say whether it comes apart and whether you still have the fittings. State the floor, whether there is a lift and the last day it can be collected: someone driving in from Las Cumbres or Pacora with a borrowed pickup plans around all three. If you are leaving the country, put that in the title. It tells a buyer there is a deadline and room on the price, and the rooms that empty first belong to the listings that answered those questions before anyone asked.