Sofas, beds, mattresses, dining tables, rugs and dressers carry real prices read at the shop that sells them, with the date on every row. Every other category is still sample data.
What does it cost to furnish an apartment?
Buying every one of the 21 things this site counts as a furnished home, new, at the cheapest option that fits: $4,444 for one person, $5,456 for two, $9,567 for three and $14,630 for a home of four or more. Those are this site's own prices, not a survey of what people spend.
Read that as the price of one particular shopping list, not as the cost of furnishing an apartment in general.
The four figures above are the total of a specific list: for each of the 21 items, the cheapest option we carry that fits that household size, times how many of it the household needs. You can open any of them in the calculator and change every line. The arithmetic, and the household-size rules behind it, are on the method page.
What each room costs, by household size
Same list, split by room. The rows are households, the columns are the six rooms this site divides a home into.
| Household | Kitchen | Laundry | Living Room | Dining | Bedroom | Bathroom | Whole home |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 person | $1,120 | $1,198 | $806 | $200 | $962 | $158 | $4,444 |
| 2 people | $1,405 | $1,298 | $1,155 | $330 | $1,081 | $187 | $5,456 |
| 3 people | $2,175 | $1,698 | $2,405 | $590 | $2,283 | $416 | $9,567 |
| 4+ people | $2,585 | $1,898 | $3,124 | $1,170 | $5,318 | $535 | $14,630 |
Two things stand out. The bedroom is the line that moves — $962 for one person against $5,318 for four, because mattresses, bed frames, bedside tables and sheets are counted per sleeper. The kitchen barely moves, because a home needs one fridge and one microwave whatever its size; what changes there is the size of the fridge, not the number of them.
How solid are these numbers?
Some retailer links here may become affiliate links in the future. As of 7 September 2026, this site is not earning commissions from these links.
6 of the 21 categories carry prices read at the shop's own page — sofas, beds, mattresses, dining tables, rugs and dressers — each row dated, most recently on 7 September 2026. The other 15 still hold sample prices, and every one of them is marked as a sample when you open it. So the room totals above are part measured and part placeholder, and the bedroom, the room that drives the difference between household sizes, is the best measured of the six.
What the totals leave out: delivery, assembly, sales tax, anything second-hand, and anything not on the 21-item list. Curtains, tools, a desk and a washing basket are all real costs and none of them are counted here.
Spending less than the figure above
The four totals are already the cheapest option in every category, so there is nothing left to squeeze inside this list. What is left is to take things out of it. In the calculator every line has a switch: turn off the dryer, the coffee maker and the TV and the one-person total drops by $1,027. Mark what you already own as bought and the running total shows only what is left to buy.
The used market is the other answer, and this site does not price it. A mattress and a sofa are the two lines most people buy new and the two that carry the largest delivery charge; the rest of the list is where second-hand tends to be worth the trouble. We do not track those prices, so treat that as an opinion rather than a figure.
What it costs to run, once it is in
Eight of the 21 items draw power. At 18.34¢ per kWh, the eight come to $19.26 a month for one person and $37.37 for a home of four — $231.08 and $448.41 a year. The per-item consumption figures and the sum are on the method page.
Questions
How much does it cost to furnish a one-bedroom apartment?
On this site's own prices, the cheapest complete 21-item list for one person comes to $4,444, split $1,120 kitchen, $1,198 laundry, $806 living room, $200 dining, $962 bedroom and $158 bathroom. It buys everything new and assumes the apartment has a washer and dryer hookup.
Why does the total nearly triple between one person and four?
Because eight of the 21 items are counted per person or per bed rather than per home. The bedroom alone goes from $962 to $5,318, since a home of four gets three mattresses, three bed frames, four bedside tables and three sets of sheets. The kitchen, which is one of nearly everything, only goes from $1,120 to $2,585.
Does that figure include delivery, assembly or sales tax?
No. Every figure on this site is the shop's own listed price for the item, before delivery, assembly and tax. Delivery on a sofa or a mattress is often the largest single line a first-time buyer does not plan for, and it is not in these totals.
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Run by Kaz, an individual. Last updated 7 September 2026.