Coordinating Furniture And Decor With Roommates

By Danielle Wirsansky on July 5, 2019

This article is brought to you by CORT Furniture Rental. We take the hassle out of furnishing your new place so you can do more important things like read this article. Learn more about why furniture rental is the best way to get a great looking apartment.

Getting to decorate your apartment as a college student is one of the most fun parts about living on your own! Part of being in charge of your own space is getting to decide how it looks, creating a space that you can feel comfortable in, and designing it to best represent who you are and what you stand for.

However, if you are like most college students, while you may be living on your own for the first time, you are not really living alone. Living on your own means away from your parents and in charge of yourself. However, you most likely do have roommates. It is hard to afford to live without a roommate (even after college!).

This means that as much as you would like to decorate your whole apartment any way you would like, you do have a roommate (and a limited budget) to consider. This might seem like a large undertaking. How can the two of you agree? How can you get everything done? Read on for some tips on coordinating furniture and décor with your roommates!

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Plan In Advance

The best piece of advice you can take away in regards to coordinating your furniture and décor with roommates is to start planning in advance! Waiting until you are already living together is too little too late. Once you are already in the space, you have so much less time to prepare. You cannot wait to find the perfect couch at just the right price—you need a couch to sit on, and you need it now!

If you wait till the last minute, you will end up scrambling and having to make do. You might have to pay more money than you would have liked for a key piece of furniture or having to settle for a piece that you and your roommate are not both pleased about simply because you need it and you need it now. You have to make do.

Avoid having to make do and plan in advance so you and your roommate can get to work making your apartment utopia a true reality.

Pick A Scheme

The next step is to get on the same page about what you both want the apartment to look like in regards to furniture and décor. If you really want a soft, sandy beach house look while your roommate has their heart set on a Victorian steampunk vibe, it is going to be really hard for you to move forward, especially if you are not communicating clearly with each other what you are looking for.

Perhaps you are not even as developed in your thoughts as a particular style but are more focused on color. That is totally fine too! Maybe you like basic colors while your roommate loves each and every bright color out there. Because if you are not on the same page with colors, you might be headed for trouble. What if you cannot stand the color orange but your roommate loves it and would like to decorate everything in that color?

Whatever you want to do, be on the same page and just pick a scheme and stick with it. Decide you want a minimalist vibe, everything to be peach and mint colored, or that you want your apartment to really showcase spirit. You and your roommate need to agree so that your school year continues on just as harmoniously as your decoration.

Create A Budget

Next on the list is to create a budget between you and your roommate about how much you want to spend on furniture and décor. Do you have a big budget or a small one? How much money can be allotted to each piece of furniture or to the decoration? Does it make sense to buy or rent your furniture?

How can you achieve your agreed upon aesthetic if you and your roommate are not on the same page about how much money each of you can spend bringing your plans to life?

And now living on your own for the first time and having to buy or rent your own furniture, you might not realize how expensive all these items can be!

Photo by Designecologist from Pexels

You are going to have to live in this space for at least the next year or so (depending on your lease), so you want to make it the best and most comfortable place for you to live and exist in during that time. Take what steps you can to coordinate your furniture and décor with roommates so that when the school year begins and you are all moved in, you are sitting pretty on a couch you like surrounded by art you vibe with and a good attitude to keep you hustling all school year long.

Looking for an easy way to furnish your off-campus apartment? Renting furniture from CORT saves you time and money. See how easy it is to get great looking furniture without breaking the bank.

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