Furnishing a flat with basic essentials.

In my previous post I wrote about the 10 essential things that you need to check before you move into your new flat. Assuming that everything is in order and you have signed the contract and are now holding the keys in your hand, the next thing to do is to clean, dust and furnish the flat.

My advise is that clean the flat whilst its empty, this way you can clean in every nook and cranny and be assured that its spotless. Also use a carpet freshner when vacuuming to refresh the carpet and remove any odours.

The next step is to furnish the flat, this we kept to a basic minimum. You can source furniture from charity, shops, check local papers for things to sell, check on facebook groups for local areas where people want to giveaway stuff. However the drawback of this is that everything will be mismatched and you cannot get all the furniture you require at the same time. Also even if the furniture you get is free you will have to find a mode of transport to get it to your flat and get it up the stairs. So in the long run it may not be practical.

Having weighed up all the pros and cons we decided to buy new. Ikea was our out next stop, we ordered a bed, a wardrobe and chest of drawers for the bedroom, for the lounge/ diner a sofa bed and a small dining table and chairs. Finally we ordered a desk for studying as my daughter is going to be doing a practical training year so together with work she will need to study too.

                                Before                                                         After

Ikea do offer a service where they will deliver the items to your door for a fixed delivery charge, they also provide a service where they will build all the items for you for a set fee. We declined that and chose to make up the furniture our selves to save on the additional cost.

On delivery day all the items came flat packed, inside the boxes were assembly instructions which were fairly easy to follow. The trick with assembling flat pack stuff is to check you have all the parts before you commence and read over the instructions fully before starting. It took us two full days to assemble all the furniture.

Next we needed some curtains so we headed over to Dunelm and picked up some in the sale, armed with a sewing machine and lots of cutting and snipping  and sewing the flat has some curtains. My husband lent a hand fitting the new curtains to the tracks. With all hands on deck, the flat was cleaned hoovered, dusted, furnished  and and ready to move in.

It certainly has been hard work setting the flat up and making sure its in order before she moves in. However it is coming together nicely. The flat is furnished and below you can see the results.

Have you managed to get any great bargains or have suggestions on furnishing on a budget??? Do share your ideas in the comments section below.

In my next post I will share details of the kitchen, what basic utensils you will need and what  store cupboard essentials to stock.