Livening Up Your Living Space
Moving from a dorm room to an apartment or house is the natural step for many upperclassmen. It can be very challenging to transform the white walls of a 1000-foot apartment into home without breaking the bank.
Fortunately, Fayetteville has plenty of resources where students can get inexpensive furniture and decor to spruce up their new homes.
Walking into an apartment, the kitchen is usually the first thing that people see. It gives the vibe for the rest of the house. A kitchen can be very easily spruced up with just a few colorful dish towels hung on the stove or place mats on the table or bar. All of these things can be found at Target for less than five dollars.
Another fun idea for the kitchen is to get a chalkboard or whiteboard to write groceries or reminders for your roommates. Pictures and magnets on the refrigerator are also an easy fix to a dull kitchen.
If you have extra wall space in your kitchen, hanging a colorful clock on the wall can add your own flair to the room. Hobby Lobby has modern, vintage and brightly colored clocks to choose from.
Next is the living room. This is often the most difficult space to decorate because it has so much open wall space.
Before you and your roommates buy furniture for your apartment, make sure to check with family members or friends to see if they are storing extra furniture in their basements or attics.
Family members are often willing to loan you their extra furniture for a year or two as long as you promise to take good care of it. This can save you hundreds of dollars and the stress of dividing up the furniture between you and your roommates once you move out.
Taking different pieces of furniture from family members can sometimes lead to an assortment of mismatched furniture. But no need to worry, you can pull all of the mismatched furniture together with throw pillows, blankets and wall decor.
If you are not able to find all of the furniture to complete your living room, you can look at consignment stores such as Potter’s House, Goodwill or the Salvation Army. All of these stores have inexpensive furniture in good condition that can be repainted to go with the rest of your decor.
Prairie Grove is another great place to look for furniture for your apartment. It is located 15 miles outside of Fayetteville and is home to some of Arkansas’s most unique antique and vintage shops. It is the perfect place to shop for a fun side table made out of a suitcase or vintage books to accent your living room.
Filling up the wall space in your living area can be a daunting task. In this case, sometimes the bigger the better. Posters or flags are easy to hang and conveniently take up a lot of space while still showing your personality. Another fun idea is a travel map that showcases where you and your roommates have traveled or where you hope to someday visit.
Another inexpensive way to fill the wall space is with prints. Hobby Lobby has prints of anything from The Beatles to golden retriever puppies, so you can find something that fits your taste. The prices and sizes vary, but the prints are no more than $30. You can add your own flair to the prints by putting them in plain or vintage frames to go with your room.
With just a couple of trips to the consignment store or flea market and some creativity, you can transform the uniform look of your house or apartment into something unique.
