<p>Hey guys.</p>
<p>I was just wondering how you went about buying furniture for your college dorm/suite. Did you and your roommate divide what you were going to buy amongst each other? What did you buy for your dorm/suite? Where can I find affordable furniture and/or accessories for college dorms/suites?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>I’d like to ask in addition, how did you get it IN your dorm? Like, small pieces are easy, but how did you get in big stuff, such as tables?</p>
<p>The only furniture I bought were those little cheap pieces from Pottery Barn Teen and that are easily movable, like a butterfly chair or standing lamp.</p>
<p>I’d suggest staying with small pieces as moving things in and out at the end of the year can be hellish. I once brought a large bookcase during my freshman year—never did that again. If you can’t move it by yourself, don’t bring it, is my mantra.</p>
<p>All I brought was a bookcase (real light and easily movable) and a standing cart-type thing with drawers. Most dorms aren’t big enough to bring something such as a table in (at least, not at my school). At most I’d get some small pieces and maybe a fold-up chair or something.</p>
<p>All the dorm rooms here come “furnished”. Doubt you could fit much else in if you tried.</p>
<p>How big are your dorm rooms?</p>
<p>Together, my roommate and I brought a few lamps in lieu of the blinding fluorescent lights provided by the school, a TV, microwave, fridge, and a foldup chair. In retrospect, the microwave, chair and fridge ended up being pretty unnecessary and more importantly a waste of limited space. Most schools will give you a desk, bed, some form of storage, and chair. There really isn’t room for much else, so pack conservatively.</p>
<p>The school I’m attending next year houses mostly in suites. So, there will be an empty common room and then bedrooms attached. They provide beds, desks, and a bureau. The Common Room, however, doesn’t have any furniture.</p>
<p>I was looking some stuff up and realized that couches/futons, bean bag chairs, etc. are fairly expensive so I was wondering how everyone (who has an unfurnished common room, I guess) went about buying stuff.</p>
<p>I would wait and coordinate with your suitemate(s). For my freshman suite, once the lists were up, we started talking about furnishings and found that there were 2 sets of parents who had already decided to buy like a whole suite’s worth of furniture for their kid, and other people who had things they could/wanted to bring. None of them would take anyone else’s money for it, so the rest of us ended up buying very little. We each brought some decorative stuff of an agreed color scheme, and we ended up chipping in for more lamps when we got there and realized how dark it was.</p>
<p>If you do need to buy things, sometimes you can buy bookcases, chairs, etc, for your suite from seniors who don’t want to take them away with them or from the existing occupants of the suite who are rooming with different people in the coming year. Otherwise, it depends on whether there are people who can transport things, or if you’re going to get them delivered. </p>
<p>Things we have found useful for our suites: a futon; chairs you can move around and, preferably, fold up; an individual storage box for each person that you can just throw your junk into; shelves for the bathroom; lamps, lamps, and more lamps; a mirror; some kind of unifying color scheme with throws, rugs, wall-hangings, etc (this is possibly a girl thing, but it makes everything seem tidier and more pulled together and less like a storage facility)</p>
<p>Things we have not found useful: a dining-type table - noone eats off it, and it’s just a magnet for junk; multiple electrical items and small tables; plants. </p>
<p>Generally, you need less than you imagine. For example, in my freshman year, we had quite a big suite, and we could quite easily have managed without having a proper chair/couch space for each person because it was very rare that everyone was in there at the same time. It’s really easy to make a suite look messy and uninviting just by having too much furniture in it.</p>
<p>Never really bought furniture except posters, artwork, nice floorlamps. (Be wary of certain floor lamps though. BC took my sweet, floor lamp and said it was against the rules. Bastards.)</p>
<p>Me and my direct roommate bought a nice futon from Target and split the costs. We also bought sofa covers, table settings and a TV stand. The common room stuff we bought was split evenly amongst the four of us.</p>