Furnishing Tips for Your First Apartment

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Moving into a new apartment is an exciting and overwhelming phase in everyone’s life. Unlike your parents’ home, it is a space you entirely own, giving you the right to set decoration and design tips that suit your style. While this sounds fun, it is a challenging project, whether you have enough to splurge or are on a budget. The following tips and tricks can help you furnish your first apartment.

1. Know where to save or splurge

Your purchase decisions are a big factor in furnishing your first apartment. Even with enough money, there’s a lot you should buy, making it necessary to know where to save and splurge. Being your first apartment, you should shop for most items on a budget as you continue identifying your personal style.

However, it makes a lot of sense to splurge on a quality mattress for your bedroom and furniture items. You should search online for a good mattress and order quality furniture sets fromkasala.com. Apart from the mattress and furniture, you can buy other items on a budget. You can find interesting purchases on thrift stores, social media platforms, online marketplaces, and from friends and family members.

2. Create a budget and stick to it

Having decided what household items to splurge on and where to save, you should create an inclusive budget and stick to it. You can furnish your apartment while maintaining your budgetary estimates in many ways. Consider the following when creating a spending plan:

• Set your budget – The budget for furnishing an apartment certainly differs from one person to the next. You shouldn’t consider what your friend or online stranger said they spent furnishing their apartment. However, you can take inspiration from their budgetary allocations. Having a budget helps in visualizing and planning your spending.
  
  
• Talk to your landlord – Some urban apartments are partially or fully furnished. You should inquire from your landlord or property owner about the furniture items, accessories, and household appliances that come with the lease.
  
  
• Prioritize the must-haves – You should prioritize the staple pieces, especially if you have a limited budget. For instance, you can start with two must-have furniture pieces, kitchen appliances, and other priority items. You can then purchase other items slowly over time.

3. Choose colors and design patterns keenly

Making color changes and other interior design updates should be part of your furnishing plans for your first apartment. Interior design features and color schemes significantly impact the apartments’ general appeal. You should consider several factors before choosing the color scheme. Whether you want to paint the interior walls or looking for a temporary solution, like wallpaper, ensure that the color complements other interior installations. You should:

• Have a good understanding of color palettes – Identifying the right color palette is the biggest challenge most first-time apartment owners face. Most of them rely on the internet for information, which might contain misleading information. Internet suggestions are also subjective. You can paint wicker bedroom furniture by yourself or make a DIY queen bed frame. But unfortunately, starting off with the wrong color can ruin your entire design. You can avoid this by researching extensively or consulting a painting pro. 
  
  
• Make the decision personal – Color choice is highly a personal decision. Instead of focusing on trendy color schemes, explore color options from stores and choose one that directly affects your mood. You should also scroll through social media feeds and online boards before deciding.
  
  
• Consider other colors in the apartment – You should consider other colors in the apartment before shopping for wall colors. Think about the color of hard finishes, such as kitchen countertops, flooring, and tiles, before choosing your wall and ceiling color scheme.

4. Don’t forget about the lighting

Choosing the right lighting can magically transform your apartment and increase its value. Lighting changes the mood and ambiance of the space. You can also use it to define your studio apartment into zones, be it the living room, mini-office, or dining room. However, unlike a big house, where you can experiment with different lighting options, making lighting decisions for apartments is challenging. Below are a few things to consider when choosing apartment lighting:

• Map the lighting in layers – Most people rely on ceiling lights as the primary and only lighting in their apartments. While you can adopt this style, consider mapping out your apartment lighting in layers. You should have ambient lighting, accent lighting, task or directional lighting, and general lighting.
  
  
• Knowing how to place lighting fixtures – Deciding where to place lighting fixtures requires that you consider several factors. For instance, busy rooms, like the kitchen and reading desks, need bright task light, while bedrooms and hallways need soft, warm lighting.
  
  
• Knowing the different bulbs – Shopping for light bulbs is another challenge. Ensure you can differentiate and understand the best use cases for incandescent, fluorescent, halogen, and LED bulbs.

5. Use mirrors to brighten your rooms

Mirrors are widely known to make rooms bigger. However, the main challenge is making the right mounting for your new apartment. While mirrors are an easier way of brightening dark rooms and adding some square footage, the key is knowing how to use them. Below are a few things you should know about using mirrors to brighten your apartment.

• Strategic placement – Positioning mirrors strategically makes them a focal point and ensures they reflect natural light into the room. Depending on the placement, you can use mirrors as a light source. Mirrors can reflect natural sunlight or act as table lamps to brighten the room at night. You should position the mirrors directly in front of the windows or any other light source.
  
  
• Mirror size – You should also choose the right mirror size to brighten your rooms effectively. Large mirrors are a good choice for living rooms, while floor-length mirrors are great for the bedroom.

Endnote

Choosing the right furnishings can make your apartment spacious and overly functional. However, furnishing your new apartment becomes challenging, given the many items you should buy. Unless you are moving into a partially or fully furnished apartment, you should budget appropriately and prioritize important items. You should also consult professionals, especially when making color and lighting decisions.