Leaving the college dorm or your parents’ home to set up an independent household can be a rather formidable experience. Previously, your private space involved little more than you, your bed, your desk, your computer, your CD or cassette player and Hootie and the Blowfish.
Now, you’ve rented your first apartment, which consists of multiple depressingly empty rooms. What next?
Your first order of business will be to fill up those rooms, preferably with stuff that will be practical, attractive, comfortable and useful. When you’re just starting out, it usually helps if that stuff is also inexpensive.
Generous parents, who are willing to work with you and, hopefully, assume some of the startup cost, are a big plus. It often happens that way, according to Assaad Baaklini. Baaklini is manager of State Street True Value Hardware, near Loyola and Northwestern Universities’ downtown campuses and the Moody Bible Institute, so he serves a lot of students who are setting up apartments as well as young professionals who are just moving into the area. He says that many of his young customers come in with one or both parents to shop for apartment staples.
Pre-existing conditions
Roommates are another alternative way to split the cost and the decision-making when furnishing startup space. If you’re lucky and the roommate you choose has an apartment, many of the essentials will already be in place, which will greatly reduce your initial expense and save you a lot of time and energy as well.
Leigh Ann Peterson, who is moving into the city from Indiana to attend Columbia College, is doubly blessed. She will be sharing a spacious Lincoln Park apartment with roommates; she’s moving everything from her bedroom, and her mother, Diane Peterson, is helping with the other necessities.
“I bought a set of sauce pans and a frying pan for her, and towels, sheets, dish towels and bed linens, silverware, kitchen utensils and cleaning supplies,” says Diane Peterson. “We also bought a desk, telephone and an answering machine. Everything else is already there, so she should be all set.”
Whether you have your parents’ help, whether you’re setting up quarters with new roommates or whether you’re strictly on your own, it helps to begin with a plan. Take a close look at your new space and decide how you can use it most effectively. Then, decide how much you can afford to spend on furnishings and supplies.
You’ll begin with the essentials. You and I and Princess Diana probably all have wildly different ideas of what is essential, so, the way you furnish your space will depend, to a great extent, on your lifestyle and your own idea of what is necessary for your well-being. However, the days when the definition of basics was a stereo, a mattress on the floor and a case of beer in the fridge, have long gone, so you should really do a little better than that.
The big tickets
Your biggest outlay, assuming you have to buy them, will be on big ticket items such as a bed, a bureau, a table, and a chair or two. Unless your building furnishes them, you’ll also need draperies, curtains, roller shades or mini-blinds for privacy. Telephones are also essential and, for almost everybody, an answering machine and at least one TV, but then you will probably bring those with you, along with your stereo, from your dorm room or your former bedroom.
Couches and desks are not, strictly speaking, essential for those who are willing to let their visitors sit on the floor and to use a table for a work surface, so you may want to postpone those purchases until you’ve bought all the other stuff and see how much money you have left.
However, if you’re strapped for cash, you may be able to scrounge some, or all, of these items from parents, brothers or sisters or other relatives who have extras. If not, check resale shops and outlet stores.
Box springs and mattresses are rather pricey. A trendy and less expensive substitute is a futon, which can be folded to provide extra seating when you’re not sleeping on it, so it is also ideal for small quarters such as studio apartments.
In addition to the furniture, you’re going to need a number of ordinary housewares and supplies for your new space.
Baaklini says his customers spend anywhere from $50 to $1,000 or more on apartment housewares, with the average being somewhere around $300.
Chef’s essentials
You’ll be eating, of course, which means you’ll need some conventional kitchen equipment. How much depends on how much eating you plan to do and how you plan to do it. If you’re one of the many who think of meals in terms of munchies, carry-out, order-in or restaurants, you’ll probably agree with Jan Keltner of Roommate Connections.
Keltner, who advises many of her clients on startup furnishings, believes a microwave is one of the most essential appliances for today’s kitchen. Baaklini agrees, saying he sells a lot of them, especially a small “half-pint” model that will quickly heat such things as a bowl of soup, a cup of instant coffee or single servings of any old frozen entree or leftover. Most people also consider toasters and coffee-makers as essentials.
In addition, you’ll need a fork, knife and spoon and at least one plate, drinking glass and coffee mug, unless you plan to slurp everything up right out of the cartons and cans. If you plan to entertain, a full set of dinnerware, glassware and silverware might be a good investment. Unless you have a dishwasher, you’ll need a dish strainer and a mat for the sink to keep your dish or dishes from chipping. You’ll also need a garbage can.
If you plan to do any cooking, you’ll have to add a sauce pan or two and a skillet along with a butcher knife, a parer and some other kitchen utensils and, if you’re not sure how to cook, a good beginner’s cookbook. Baaklini says many of his customers also buy drawer dividers to keep the kitchen equipment in order.
For the bathroom, you’ll need a shower curtain and hooks for hanging it, a bath mat and towels.
Don’t forget about cleaning supplies and equipment. Even if you don’t like to think about it, reality demands that living space be cleaned occasionally, which means you’re going to need a dust cloth, a broom, a mop, a scrub bucket, a toilet brush and some sponges. If you have carpets, you’ll need a vacuum cleaner or a carpet sweeper. You’ll need cleaning products, too, including cleansers, laundry and dish detergent, an all-purpose cleaner, glass cleaners and steel wool pads.
Light and air
Then, there are the incidentals. Baaklini thinks supplemental lighting and heating and cooling appliances are also essential in most places.
“Many apartments have only one lighting source–a ceiling fixture, in the middle of each room,” he says, “so a lot of our customers shop for desk, table or floor lamps to supplement.
“In the winter, people often want a humidifier or a space heater and, in the summer, they will buy window air conditioning units and fans.”
Oddly enough, an iron and ironing board are no longer considered essential, according to Keltner.
“Most young people today wear everything right out of the dryer,” she says, “and if it isn’t wearable that way, they send it to the cleaners.”
Last, but far from least, in the realm of startup essentials are emergency items–those little odds and ends that help right all the things that are forever going wrong. A tool kit with screwdrivers, pliers, a hammer and a utility knife is a pretty basic household requirement as are a flashlight, candles and matches and a small battery-powered radio to cope with power outages; an alarm clock to get you to work or classes on time; duct tape and all-purpose glue to put things back together again; a first aid kit to patch yourself up when a repair has gone awry; and stain remover and a sewing kit to correct apparel mishaps.
