Home Sweet Apartment

I showed you all a few pictures of my apartment when I had just moved in back in May, but I thought I would share a few more since I've been settled for a few months. Living on my own as a post grad has been the best decision I've made in a long time. While I'm not opposed to having apartment-mates in the future, they will need to be friends that I know I'm compatible with.

Here are a few photos of my finished apartment and some suggestions for furnishing your first solo place!



Tip #1: USE CRAIGSLIST. My coffee table, tv stand, desk, swivel chair, bookcase, and kitchen table are all from Craigslist. I get a little weirded out buying couches or chairs from Craigslist (I worry about bed bugs or other infestation issues), but I know plenty of people that have been successful getting couches off of the website. If you are comfortable with used things, you could literally furnish your whole apartment with affordable second hand items.

Tip #2: Dual purpose pieces. After a ton of research, I ended up purchasing my futon from Walmart for about 150 dollars. I chose this one because I knew I wanted to have friends and family come visit me and have a comfortable place to sleep. It's pretty comfortable as a couch and also opens up into an awesome sleeping area.



Tip #3: Choose your splurges carefully. I love interior design and design blogs, so it's easy to be swept away by adorable pieces I see. My splurge item will always be bedding, and eventually when I move into a larger apartment, and comfy sectional couch. My splurge for this apartment was my flower chair. It was a little over a hundred dollars from Target, but I thankfully had a 50 dollar gift card to put towards it, making it much more reasonable.



Tip #4: Keep an eye on the curb. The end table next to my futon was found outside of my office next to a dumpster and I have seen a ton of awesome pieces while running through my neighborhood that I would love to take if I had the space. Craigslist may be cheap, but curbside shopping is free!

Tip#5 Pay attention to apartment bulletin boards. I haven't gotten any of my pieces this way, but people use the bulletin board in my apartment building all the time when they are moving and looking to get rid of things. I've seen free chairs, tables, and couches listed.

5 comments:

  1. Great advice! My roommate and I are in the process of furnishing our apartment and these are all good guidelines. We bought four amazing Pier One chairs off of Craigslist. I don't know if Rochester has something like this, but I'm obsessed with Freecycle. It's an online service that's set up like a listserv, where people post items they want to give away for free. Some of it is kind of random (I've seen people giving away potted plants or old bras, which grosses me out) but I got a great desk and a leather armchair off of Freecycle.

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  2. I got a GREAT deal on bedding by watching out for sales and using coupons. It sounds like such a Mom thing to do, but it's worth the time and effort. I bought a beautiful Martha Stewart comforter and sheets for $38 from Macy's. When I started looking for bedding, I was freaked out by how expensive it can be, but lots of department stores have big sales regularly AND send you coupons in the mail constantly.

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  3. I love the functional design of your apartment. It is well done. Good work on that one. It looks amazing.

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  4. Thank you for the post.I am really happy to read this post.I have got the valuable information and have bookmarked it already for more

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