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I already have a bedroom set, but I have no clue what to do about my living / dining area. The only things that I know that I really want is the sofa (Karlstad sofa in Isunda Grey w/ metal legs) and locker TV stand below from Ikea. Idk what color of coffee table, side table, side chair, or dining set to pick. Do I go with white, natural wood, or mix-match?
My living/dining room is 12x17, so not too large. I'm handy enough that I can repaint or stain wood, and alter things. I like a little bit of color, but mostly neutral pieces.
I kind of really like the table above and maybe I can get a red bench to replace two the chairs and have it on the opposing side of the TV stand to kind of coordinate with it.
I plan on buying a lot of my stuff from Ikea as it fits in my budget and it'll be convenient. I've been looking at Target, Pier 1, Kohl's, Macy's, etc. as well. Really, really need help. I'm clueless. Trying to get the basics out of the way, sigh..
I don't know where to ask for help. I'm totally clueless, and the moving date is getting closer and closer. My brain just can't functionally piece a living space together from scratch. I just know I want it to look really sharp, and I have about 3-4k to spend for everything (thanks dad!).
You should be nicer to yourself. You picked out some great stuff. Get all of those things.
I'd definitely mix and match the living room tables. I'd get light wood end tables and a black coffee table.
I think grey, black, red and light wood is a great color palette. You have good instincts. Trust them.
Thanks!! Haha! I'm not too big a fan of black, mostly like greys, whites, pale blues, neutral woods, etc. I'll have to look around for black furniture because a lot of cheap black furniture looks...cheap. I really like those flamboyant, white frill pillows. I think that they could maybe soften the room up with the stark greys, natural woods, blacks and metallics. Maybe some navy colored throw pillows on a red bench if I decide to get one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trevismarcus
I think you may choose natural wood furniture. It will looking very graceful.
That's what I was thinking :P. There's a lot of options and variety with that.
I really like this with the natural color table. The pop of lime green and red. But I'm not sure how it'd fit in. I like the idea of black chairs with maybe a red bench. I think that would look really elegant. Or maybe just all black chairs, haha.
These are the optional metal legs that I was talking about. I like them a lot more than the wood legs that come standard.
Thanks hope! If I were to do a black coffee table should would I do a matte finish or glossy? I'm thinking more of a matte, and I'm looking at square and round. I don't think a rectangle/obtuse table would fit well in the space with the smaller sofa-chaise lounge combo.
I think matte would look better with the other things you chose. I agree that round would be better for that space with the chaise sticking out. Plus, it's good to have some round pieces to soften all of the rectangular pieces.
Don't forget to budget for some curtains...I know apartments come with blinds, but it's nice to put curtains in front of that for privacy and to make it dark enough to see your TV, or dark enough to sleep in on the weekends. Curtains also allow you to add a big pop of color to a room that you might not be allowed to paint. I would use royal blue curtains to go with the red tv stand and gray couch.
A rug is good too, especially if you have one long room that's living room and dining room, the rug will help define the areas.
You can also try Craigslist to stretch your furniture budget (although 3-4K is more than enough to get the job done), especially if you're willing to paint things.
Make sure you measure your living room to be sure the couch will fit and leave room to walk around and to get to doors...I didn't do that in my first apartment and we had to climb over the arm of the couch to get to the kitchen. We were young enough that it was pretty funny, but after that we always measured.
Don't forget to budget for some curtains...I know apartments come with blinds, but it's nice to put curtains in front of that for privacy and to make it dark enough to see your TV, or dark enough to sleep in on the weekends. Curtains also allow you to add a big pop of color to a room that you might not be allowed to paint. I would use royal blue curtains to go with the red tv stand and gray couch.
A rug is good too, especially if you have one long room that's living room and dining room, the rug will help define the areas.
You can also try Craigslist to stretch your furniture budget (although 3-4K is more than enough to get the job done), especially if you're willing to paint things.
Make sure you measure your living room to be sure the couch will fit and leave room to walk around and to get to doors...I didn't do that in my first apartment and we had to climb over the arm of the couch to get to the kitchen. We were young enough that it was pretty funny, but after that we always measured.
Yeah! I definitely agree with all of those points. It's just going to be kind of difficult because the apartment that I have my heart set on is one of those "trendy" former warehouses that was converted to loft-style apartments. It's basically a studio with a "kind of bedroom". There's a divider wall stretching 1/2 through. I'm definitely going to be getting an area rug as the floors are all wood. I'm pretty sure curtains are out of the question though because the windows are basically floor-to-ceiling. The windows have shades that pull down that pretty much block sunlight. I can't even imagine how much custom curtains would cost. The window walls are brick, but most of the interior walls are drywall. I could paint the divider wall blue as an accent wall?
The budget my father set aside for me has to include other necessities as well, like pots pans, dinnerware, flatware, etc. However, I just started a job at Kohl's and opened a small limit store credit card (like $1,000). They have a promotion going on where I received a scratch off for 30% that will stack with my associate discount of 15%. I'll just dig into my savings a little and use my first couple pay checks to pay it off after I buy everything - non-furniture essentials and some decor.
Anyway, this is [VERY CRUDE] drawing of the layout:
They're still in the process of being finished and I'm on the waiting list to move in the middle of June. I toured a model suite that is basically what I would be moving into with the above furniture layout. It's small, but they designed it really well I think. Their website also has an interactive rudimentary flash enabled furniture layout program that I messed around with.
There's a small, narrow built-in desk/shelf combo as you walk into the bedroom. The bedroom can comfortably fit a queen bed. The way they had the living space set up was a small round dining table with 4 chairs, a small sectional sofa like I pictured above, a small coffee table, and TV stand. I'm going to wait until after I move everything in, but I'm hoping I can fit maybe an extra small side chair in the living area. There's a small pantry, a coat closet, and a small laundry closet. It comes with a washer and dryer in the unit, but just one of those tiny stacked apartment sized washer and dryer combo units. The thing that I liked the most was that the bathroom was accessible through both the foyer and bedroom with two doors. I toured a lot of one bedrooms with bathrooms only accessible through the bedroom.
I think its going to all work out. The apartment complex is close to campus, is relatively affordable, and has a lot of utilities included in the rent price. You can get internet through the apartment complex for approximately 25 bucks a month. There's also a 24 hour front desk attendant, 24 hour maintenance, a nice gym, pool, courtyard, tennis courts, etc.
When my son was moving out of state, I went to buy three lamps someone posted on Craig's List. It turns out they had a yard sale because they were moving out of the country. The lamps were among some items left after the sale. I bought a cool sofa bed, modern TV credenza, coffee table, end tables, and the three lamps for a grand total of $100. Since we now had to move all this stuff (instead of buying once he arrived), I rented a U-Haul trailer ($300), which allowed us to take mattresses and furniture from his bedroom. I emptied my kitchen of any pots, pans, dishes, utensils I no longer needed, and we hit the dollar store. Total cost was about $500, including the U-Haul trailer rental.
Moral of this story. You can buy some of your odds and ends at flea markets, yard sales, craig's list, dollar stores. Don't charge this stuff on a Kohl's card. Credit card debt is a bad idea for a college student. .
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-Matte 
- Glossy
I'll look around for a round table. I didn't even think of the contrast between round and square/rectangle objects. That's a good thought!
