Lessons from Furnishing My Apartment on Facebook Marketplace

And my local Buy Nothing group, and Apt Deco, and free things I got from friends

I live in a small one bedroom apartment. It is only considered a one bedroom apartment because there is a door to a bedroom, and the only closet in the apartment is in my bedroom. You might imagine this makes storage difficult—yes, I store shoes in the oven, but that isn’t enough.

When I first moved into my apartment, I bought mostly new furniture. I had left most of my furniture from my previous apartment at my parent’s house and didn’t plan to move it. And when I say I bought new things, I really mean I scoured my local Buy Nothing group, Facebook Marketplace, and Apt Deco.

I got a queen sized bedframe from someone in a far nicer apartment than mine who was upgrading from the old Ikea bedframe. The only stipulation was that I needed to get the bedframe across three avenues and six blocks. Luckily, two friends and an UberXL helped me.

I got a couch from Apt Deco, a coffee table and desk from Facebook Marketplace, and two side tables from my parents’ house stacked together to form a “dresser”—they do house some of my clothes. I furnished this apartment for about $1,300, the bulk of which was the Burrow couch bought secondhand. Even though it was relatively inexpensive for a full furniture set, not only did no pieces match, but every piece lacked storage. The bedframe was so low to the ground that I couldn’t fit anything underneath, the desk had no shelves or drawers, and my “dresser” only fit half my clothes.

The only piece I bought full price was the dining set. I looked through all my secondhand sites, but I couldn’t find something I liked. Instead, I bought the cheapest dining set I could find from Walmart.

The table had storage on the side! It was perfect, a little high top with shelves on the side. Finally, a space to put not just my keys, but all the little things that didn’t fit anywhere else—my purses and bags, my umbrellas, my sunglasses.

The box was 70 pounds. I didn’t know how heavy it was when I carried it up to my fourth floor walkup, but when I looked at the weight online after, I felt stupid for carrying it up the stairs myself. And I felt a little justified for being so incredibly winded after that that I needed to lay on the floor and chug water for ten minutes before opening the box.

I started to assemble the two chairs first, thinking they would be easier. Smaller, less parts. I was wrong. The pieces didn’t fit together at all. I looked through the reviews, searching for advice. Someone must have figured out how to put these chairs together. But I was wrong. Most people said this was the cheapest dining table they could find, and it showed. The pieces didn’t fit together.

I took a break from the chairs and put together the table. While it had more parts, it did come together. It looked about as good as the cheapest table you could think of might look, and I set it up in my living room, the storage facing out towards the room so the table stuck out from the wall, so the chairs could be opposite each other, fitting underneath the table.

The chairs finally did come together, but they were ugly and unstable. I dealt with them for months, and then eventually bought new chairs—also very cheap, but slightly less cheap. The original chairs were so bad, I couldn’t even give them away in the Buy Nothing group. No one wanted them.

My living room sat in this configuration for almost a year, and every day, I walked past that storage section, getting more cluttered each month. It stuck out from the wall, and I walked through the two foot gap between the coffee and dining table any time I walked from my bedroom to the kitchen.

Diagram of my apartment, made on Canva. I never claimed to be a graphic designer. The bright green rectangle is the table with the small storage area at the front.

I thought about buying a new dining table. Maybe something that fit better, maybe something that hid storage underneath it instead. But I never did, because money.

Finally, one day, I turned the table 90°. Instead of the storage facing out, it now faced away from the front door to my apartment.

Originally, I hadn’t done this because it wouldn’t be a comfortable way to sit at the table—the chairs didn’t tuck in since the storage shelves were where your feet would tuck into the table. But over the year, I ate at that table maybe five times. Every other day, I was on the couch.

When I first moved in, was I aspirational in thinking I would eat at a dining table every day? Yes. Did I suffer for it every day, tripping past a table that stuck out from the wall, staring at my cluttered belongings? Also yes.

It’s a small thing. But it took me a whole year to do it, so it’s not that small. Actually, the table is quite big for the size of this apartment, and that’s why I repositioned it.

Another Canva illustration of how much space I created by moving the table 90°.

Is this a metaphor for a small thing you might be able to change in your life that would drastically change your life? Is this a lesson that sometimes it’s not about buying something expensive, but doing something free that would improve it? I think it’s a little bit of both.

It’s also definitely a lesson that furnishing your apartment cheap is possible, and with an UberXL and a Buy Nothing group you can do a lot. But maybe invest in a couple pieces with better storage. Especially if you only have one tiny closet, and you want to use your oven for more than storing shoes.

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When my cat isn’t sitting here, this is where you might find me eating dinner.