Getting the Most out of Your Living Room

One of the most difficult aspects of creating a great living space is deciding how to get the most out of your living room. After all, if you’re a student living in an off-campus apartment with a roommate, you’re probably dealing with disorganization, because you don’t feel like you have enough time. In other cases, your roommates possibly don’t care about getting things organized and just place items into a pile. This level of disorganization complicates matters when their stuff gets mixed into yours.

Once you start losing things in your living room, it’s time to stop the idea that you can just place things anywhere you want. If you want real organization and a truly more livable living room, you need to place things in efficient areas. However, it goes beyond this and into your basic interior design. You want to create a space that allows your living room to not only be livable, but also presentable when you inevitably have family or friends over.

Destroying the Pile of Junk

No more should you and your roommate pile all of your important items on one large table or even on your couch or chairs. Placing important things like your keys, mail and even your wallet in a giant junk pile is the equivalent to dumping life essentials into a landfill. When those items mix in with the stuff from your roommate, things start becoming chaotic.

The above gets worse when you can’t divide up your true junk pile from the essential items you need to keep an eye on. In this scenario, an important bill, your keys or a mandatory document could get accidentally thrown away.

Buy some letter holders to organize your mail and place hooks on a nearby wall to hang up your keys. Even something as simple as an attractive and compact storage box for both you and your roommate gives you a better sense of control and gets rid of living room clutter.

Once you have visitors over, you also need to think about the things you have in your living room and what you can buy without spending a fortune.

What Kind of Furniture Should You Acquire?

While you might get advice to just pick up a dingy couch sitting on an outdoor sidewalk, don’t let that be your first choice. First off, you don’t know who owned that abandoned couch before you and whether the couch is actually clean. Even if you can use scent removers on furniture, try some other routes first before succumbing to dumpster diving.

Your best move is asking relatives if they have furniture they can’t use any more. When you tell friends and family that you can’t afford furniture for college life, it’s a good bet you’ll get a strong response. This gives you an opportunity for having better-looking furniture without having to pay much or anything.

If you do have to buy, though, a futon is usually the most economical and best alternative for living rooms.

Placing Some Decor on Your Windows and Walls

Try adding colorful curtains to your windows so you bring some sense of decor to your living room. Don’t buy cheap, see-thru curtains either since it could lead to nearby window gazers invading your privacy.

You can also make your living room walls stand out. When you rent, it’s best to hang pictures on light hooks, though you’ll create a more attractive atmosphere using picture frames. With the ability to buy frames in different colors, you can add some real class to your apartment living room. Attractive picture frames are also found at $1 stores, so they don’t have to cost a lot.

What are some of your student housing living room decorating ideas? Tell us about them in the comment section below.