<p>Looks like my son will be sharing an unfurnished house with 7 other guys next year. I will only have 2 small SUVs available to get his stuff there so does anyone have advice on what to bring and what will fit. </p>
<p>Mostly I am wondering what he will sleep on. I have considered getting a futon mattress that would roll or fold up to fit in my suv but I'm not sure what kind would do that and be comfortable enough for him to sleep on daily for a year. I might be able to get a regular twin mattress to fit if it sticks out the rear suv window but it won't be fun to cart back and forth. Any thoughts/suggestions?</p>
<p>Can you buy him a new bed (box spring, mattress and metal frame on wheels) in the town and have it delivered? (Delivery will cost.) Then sell it when he moves to recoup a little bit of the money. I don’t recommend buying any used mattress if bedbugs are problematic in his area. For his first several nights until delivery, just a blow-up camping air mattress on the floor, with sleeping bag or quilt on top, should suffice and you can take those back home with you.</p>
<p>Regarding futons, one of my sons has a double futon he bought from another student that sits up as a couch or unfolds into a double bed on a wooden-slat frame. That has lasted him from jr. year in college all through many apartments. When he upgraded to double bed he kept the futon as his living room couch/guest bed. I find it much too hard but younger people don’t mind at all.</p>
<p>Recently I slept on a different futon that was good and thick. I was impressed, then learned it cost a thousand dollars! It also was a double and turned into a living room couch or guest bed, as needed. </p>
<p>I know a young man who spent 2 years after college as a campaign aid. He moved frequently. He slept on an aerobed (one of those inflatable beds you see on TV and can buy at BB&B) the whole time and said it was great.</p>
<p>I probably could buy him something there and get it delivered but I would love to find him something reasonably comfortable that would fit into the suv since we only live a 2 hour drive away. I have a foam sofa sleeper that he could take, but it lays on the floor when opened and we’d prefer that he was up off the floor … so I am thinking a futon would work but I need to find one that will fold up but that would be thick enough to be comfortable on a folding frame.</p>
<p>You can buy a memory foam mattress on line ( it comes in a box of very reasonable size, and free shipping), and a metal frame from Walmart (comes in a surprisingly small box, shipped to your home for under $10)</p>
<p>Many do buy that IKEA furniture & then re-sell on CraigsList when they are ready to leave the area. My college grad furnished her apt by locating used IKEA furniture on Craigslist & did not pay very much for it.</p>
<p>^Does your family have experience with ikea mattresses? My fiance and I are preparing to outfit our first place and we are attracted to the prices, but I don’t know anything about beds. I am prepared to consider this a starter mattress but FH has scoliosis and I can’t have him sleeping on something that is complete crap.</p>
<p>If he’s setting up the house between now and June, Craigslist is a good source of, um, temporary furniture. DD and roommates got most bulky items that way.</p>
<p>Inflatable mattresses aren’t too bad, so long as you get one of the thinner models. Tall ones seem good in theory, but they’re REALLY top-heavy when sleeping on them and your S is likely to find himself pitched onto the floor a couple times a night! Yes inflatables can develop leaks, but this is not a significant concern in our experience.</p>
<p>One of my S’s bought a mattress/frame in his college town and used it all thru college. When S2 moved off campus we took a bed from home in DH’s pickup truck. I would definitely get a “real” bed. For students, a bed is not just for sleeping. They watch TV, do homework, study for tests, play video games, surf the internet. An inflatable bed or even a futon would not be the best idea for long term use considering how much time the kid will probably spend on the bed. </p>
<p>I would say order one and have it delivered or try to borrow a neighbor/friend/relatives’ pick-up truck for the day if you’d like to purchase in your hometown and drive it over yourself. I believe the Lowe’s in our town even rents pick-up trucks. </p>
<p>We recently ordered a pair of memory foam twin beds from Sam’s Club. Everything needed (other than linens!) came in a box and was delivered to our driveway.
From our experience, there are mattress stores in college towns that will deliver the next day after you order.</p>
<p>Right about the time your son and his seven housemates will be moving in, hundreds, maybe thousands of graduating seniors will be moving out. Of that apartment, and the ones on either side of it, and upstairs and downstairs and across the street.</p>
<p>All of them will have tons of stuff they don’t know what to do with, some of it acquired in the ways suggested above and/or hauled around in their parents’ SUVs. They will be thrilled to sell it for prices ranging from $0 to $40. Beds especially. They already have enough crap to store at Mom and Dad’s, and there isn’t room for that memory foam matress in the attic.</p>
<p>At about 1/10th the cost of what people are suggesting here, your son and his housemates could completely furnish their apartment three or four times over.</p>
<p>If you really want to take everything from home to school think about renting a trailer to transport stuff. SUVs are not all that big when it comes right down to it and a mattress of any sort (except air mattress) will take up much of the trunk space.</p>
<p>I personally hate futons, air mattresses are okay but I wouldn’t want it for two years. IMHO the bed is the most important piece of furniture and should not be skimped on. What kind of bed does he like - firm, soft, etc? Some swear by Temperpedic kind, some hate them. Even as a kid, mattresses are important. Go sample some near where he’s living and have them deliver it - most places deliver for free and within 24 hours. Everything else can be cheap, cheap, cheap but don’t scrimp on a mattress just so it fits in an SUV.</p>
<p>My kids’ apartment has a double bed that we drove over three years ago in a rented van (along with other furniture). Since then, we’ve added two futons from WalMart ($90-$100). The futons fit my Toyota Avalon (sedan) in the boxes. The mattress is okay. My daughter has been using this for a year and I sometimes use the other one when I’m staying over. You could always throw a better mattress over the frame if you wanted to. It does take a while to assemble the thing but college students shouldn’t have any problems with that.</p>
<p>I agree that a good quality and comfy bed/mattress is probably the most important item. When our Ds moved into off-campus apartments, we did the order and deliver thing and it worked well. We also got double beds rather than twin size. Sleeping well is important for busy college kids and I didn’t want to cut corners with saving a few bucks on the bed. Practically speaking, if they have a significant other, sleeping together in a twin bed isn’t a lot of fun for very long.</p>
Heck, if they wait a couple of days, they can probably get most of it from the curb without paying anything. Whatever happened to the old scavenger spirit?</p>
<p>A coworker picked up a few free furniture items for his relatively new home (which needed additional furnishings) from students leaving last summer. He found the students on Craigslist. One of the advantages of living in the Boston area.</p>
<p>That was the $0 end of my range, although it may be worth a few bucks not to have to fight the homeless for it.</p>
<p>Actually, lots of colleges now collect the stuff themselves and sell it in a central area. Penn has an enormous souk going in early June that raises money for the local United Way. They had almost 100,000 pounds of stuff last year.</p>
<p>My kid has about $250 invested at this point in a large apartment’s worth of stuff – living room, sun-porch, dining room, eat-in kitchen, pantry, bedroom. Some is co-owned with his apartment mate. Finding stuff was never a problem.</p>
<p>I would imagine that their are Craigslist giveaways where you have to come and get the stuff. It saves the folks moving out the trouble of carrying stuff down stairs.</p>