In most apartments, the living room is the first area you see when you walk in the door. In fact, in most apartments, the front door leads directly into the living room.
Before you head for campus, get with your roommates and decide what furniture each roommate should bring. The following list offers the basics for the perfect apartment living room set-up.
The Living Room
Seating: There should be at least one seat for every roommate in the house. If there are two of you sharing the apartment, you need at least two chairs in your living room. If there are three of you, you’ll need a couch and a chair, or three chairs.
Additional seating if you like to entertain. If you plan to have your boyfriend over all the time, you might want to make sure there’s a place for him to sit even when your roommates are all home.
Coffee table: Even if you don’t drink coffee, a low table is a nice thing to have in your seating area for books and drinks.
Lamps: Some apartments do not have overhead lighting. A couple of accent lamps are good for reading or studying, even if you do have overhead lighting.
Electronics: Although it’s possible to go to college and not have a television, most people want a TV in their apartment. If you’re going to have a TV in the living room, determine who is bringing it and what furniture you’ll need (an entertainment console, TV stand, etc.).
Storage: Storage cubes, a coffee table with storage, cabinets in the entertainment center or bench seating with storage is great for a college apartment, particularly for quick clean-ups.
Wall decor: Some apartments are very particular about putting nail holes in the walls, so be sure you check your lease before the banging begins.
This is just some of the important furnishings you will need for your apartment’s living room. Did we miss anything? Let us know about it in the comment section below.
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Consider yourself lucky if your student apartment’s front door opens into the living room! I’ve had them open into the kitchen, dining room, and even into a foyer that was only large enough to go up the stairs or turn around and go back out the front door. You can still get creative with making a first impression. My roommates and I decided to wallpaper the foyer with vintage movie posters and fairy lights! My next off-campus apartment was better. We decided to switch the living and dining room spaces because the dining room was bigger and we could have more friends over to watch TV.
I definitely agree with the recommendations for seating! I’d add that you might want to make sure there’s enough seating for multiple people in both the living and dining spaces individually. In my last apartment I had one roommate and we often had friends over, but only two stools at the bar that counted for our dining space. If we wanted to eat as a group, we either had to split between the two spaces (which makes conversation more awkward) or have people stand while eating.