“Buy the best and you’ll only cry once” seems to be the mantra for mother-daughter design duo Suzanne and Lauren McGrath. The pair’s latest project is Good Bones, Great Pieces: The Seven Essential Pieces That Will Carry You Through a Lifetime (Abrams Books, $30), a helpful guide that illustrates how you can hedge your bets—and tears—with a few indispensible pieces of furniture capable of anchoring any home, from a first apartment to an empty nest (and every renovation and redecoration in between).

Through lush imagery and both personal and professional accounts, mother Suzanne—a Martha Stewart Living alum—and daughter Lauren—a former fashion features writer for Teen Vogue—demonstrate the many lives of such multitasking furnishings as the love seat, the demilune, and the dresser (the latter, they reveal, can serve equally well as a bedside table or a living room bar).

Fail-proof guides to insider sources, suggestions on how to reincarnate tired pieces of furniture, and expert weigh-ins from iconic designers like Miles Redd and Robert Couturier are the gloss on the paint.