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 size fridge, washer and sofa a home needs, and what they cost to run
Every size on this site is worked out from one number you give us: how many people live in the home. Sofas, beds, mattresses, dining tables, rugs and dressers carry prices read at the shop's own page, and each row says the date; every other category still holds sample prices, and the monthly power figure covers only the 8 items on the list that plug in.
Three things against us, before the rules. 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. We did not find a published standard behind any of the 14 sizing rules below, though we cannot prove none exists (searched 6 September 2026). And 6 of the 21 categories carry checked prices today; in the other 15 the prices are still sample values.
Fully Furnished is a free US list-builder that sizes a 21-item home from a single input — the number of people living there — and totals the price. It does not sell anything, hold stock or take payment. 14 of the 21 items carry a sizing rule that changes with household size, 8 of them draw power, and everything below is the whole of the method, written out so you can check it against your own home.
How is each item sized to your household?
4 to 6 cubic feet of fridge per person, on top of a base for staples. That puts a one-person home at 14 to 18 cubic feet and a home of four at 26 to 36 cubic feet, a spread that implies a base of 10 to 12 cubic feet. That base is a number this site had never written down until now, and writing it down is the only way you can redo the sum yourself.
In the sizes you actually shop for, a one-person home comes to a 17 or 18 cubic foot fridge, a 3.5 cubic foot washer drum and a two-seat sofa; a home of four comes to a fridge of 27 to 29 cubic feet, a 4 cubic foot drum and a five-seat sofa. We never ask for room measurements, door widths or an address, because a rule you cannot check is worse than no rule at all.
The rule and the catalog do not line up perfectly. The fridges we carry for a household of four or more run from 21 to 29 cubic feet, below the 26 to 36 the arithmetic asks for at the top end, because those are the sizes the shops actually sell. Where the two disagree, believe the arithmetic and buy the nearest size on the shelf.
The table below is the complete list of sizing rules this site applies — 14 rules, one row per item. The other 7 items on the 21-item list carry no size rule of their own.
| Item | Rule |
|---|---|
| Fridge | 4–6 cubic feet per person, on top of a base for staples |
| Washing machine | Roughly one cubic foot of drum per person, 3.5 minimum |
| Dryer | About twice the washer capacity |
| Sofa | One seat per person, plus one for a guest |
| Dining table | 24 inches of table edge per seat |
| Chairs | One per seat at the table |
| Mattress | Queen for one, king for two, plus a single bed per extra person |
| Bedside table | One per sleeper |
| Dresser | About three drawers per person |
| Sheets | Two sets per bed |
| Towels | Two per person |
| Plates and bowls | Two place settings per person |
| Pots and pans | About three pieces per person |
| Lamps | Three light sources per living space |
We show you every option we carry, not only the ones that match. Anything that does not match your household size is still listed, marked Bigger than you need or Small for…. Hiding options would be easier for us and worse for you.
Do any of these sizing rules come from an official standard?
Not as far as we could find. We searched for a US federal standard, an ENERGY STAR specification or a trade-association document setting a size per person for any of the 14 items above, and did not find one (searched 6 September 2026; the search covered energystar.gov, the eCFR and the trade bodies for appliances and home furnishings). That is the limit of what we checked, not proof that nothing exists. Treat every row in that table as a retail convention you are free to overrule, not as a requirement.
What the official documents set is efficiency, and only relative to the product's own class. A refrigerator earns the ENERGY STAR mark by showing “10% less measured energy use than the minimum federal efficiency standards” (ENERGY STAR, Refrigerators & Freezers Key Product Criteria, checked 23 August 2026) for a fridge of its own size and type. A large fridge carrying the mark can still draw more power than a small one without it, so the badge narrows the model and never the size.
What do the powered items cost to run each month?
19.26 US dollars a month for a one-person home and 37.37 US dollars a month for a home of four or more, counting only the 8 powered items on this list at 18.34 cents per kWh, the US residential average for June 2026 published by EIA on 26 August 2026. Heating, cooling, hot water and any lighting beyond the lamps you picked are not included.
The two columns in the table below are the ends of the range, not the whole of it. A two- or three-person home falls between them, and your own list shows the exact figure for your household size next to the total. The table is the yearly consumption we assume for each of the 8 powered items, at the smallest and the largest household size.
| Item | kWh a year, 1 person | 4 or more |
|---|---|---|
| Fridge | 350 | 700 |
| Dryer | 600 | 1,100 |
| Washing machine | 100 | 190 |
| TV | 90 | 200 |
| Coffee maker | 40 | 80 |
| Microwave | 40 | 75 |
| Lamps | 25 | 75 |
| Vacuum | 15 | 25 |
The rounded figures in that table are our own category assumptions, not label numbers. Four of the eight items rest on firmer ground than the other four: the fridge, washer, dryer and TV each carry an EnergyGuide label, required by the Federal Trade Commission's Energy Labeling Rule (16 CFR Part 305, checked 23 August 2026), so once you pick a model the figure on your own list for those four is that model's label number, the same in every shop that sells it. The coffee maker, microwave, lamps and vacuum carry no such label at all, so those four stay category averages we picked, and they are the softest numbers on this page.
The rate is the US average residential price of 18.34 cents per kWh for June 2026, from EIA Electric Power Monthly, table 5.3, published 26 August 2026 and read here on 6 September 2026. EIA marks 2026 months as preliminary, so the figure can be revised after we quote it. It is also a national average across the 50 states and DC: a bill in Louisiana and a bill in Hawaii sit a long way either side of it, so your own bill beats this number whenever you have one to hand. For scale, the same table puts the 2025 annual average at 17.30 cents, so the year has moved this figure by about a cent.
Can furniture prices be compared across stores?
No. Furniture is harder to match across shops than appliances are: a sofa is usually sold under one retailer's own name, so the identical piece rarely appears at a second shop under a name we can match with any confidence. Appliances carry manufacturer model numbers, so those are compared across every US store we can match. Furniture is therefore listed once, at the brand that makes it, and you should assume a cheaper version of it exists somewhere we cannot see.
How fresh is the price you see?
It depends on the row, and every row says so on its face. Sofas, beds, mattresses, dining tables, rugs and dressers were read at the shop's own product page on 22 August 2026, and the row links to the page we read. All 85 of those rows have been read again since — 18 IKEA rows on 6 September 2026 and the other 67 on 7 September 2026; 12 had moved and were corrected, and the rest had not. Both figures for every one of those moves, and the day each was read, are on the price changes page. Ten of them sit on shop pages that show a price only once you pick a size, so we picked the size we list and read the number the shop then showed. Where a shop shows a lower price only to paying members or only with a promo code, we list the price everyone pays without either; a sale price the shop applies to every visitor is listed as shown. On 7 September 2026 we went back to the same pages for the facts each row's one line shows (seats, width, slats, trial length and the like) and found two Floyd rows carrying the paid-member price, now moved to the regular price, and one Article table the shop had withdrawn, now replaced by the round table Article sells at the same seat count. Any row read more than a week ago now says the shop may have changed it since under the price, because after a week that is the honest thing to say rather than a date the reader has to interpret. The other 15 categories hold sample prices we typed in, and say Sample price, never checked at a shop on every row. We do not adjust, round or add anything to what we read.
Prices are shown to the nearest dollar. IKEA prices this rounds are the shop's own $X.99 figures, so a row reading $130 is $129.99 at the till.
One shop is deliberately missing a number: Amazon. Amazon lets a site show an Amazon price only when Amazon itself served that price with the link, or when it came from Amazon's own API, and it requires a timestamp and a set disclaimer beside it. We hold neither, so rather than print a number we are not entitled to print, we list Amazon without a price and send you there to read it. That makes our comparison table one column short wherever Amazon sells the item, and we would rather be a column short than quote a price we cannot stand behind.
Are the product photographs ours?
No. Every product photograph is served directly from the store that sells the item. We do not copy them to our own servers, crop them, resize them or place anything over them: what a site may do with a retailer's image is set by that retailer's own feed or affiliate terms, and we do not read one shop's permission as covering the next. Where a store's feed has no usable photograph you will see our own line drawing instead. Every drawing on this site was made by us and is drawn to the same weight and angle, which is why the lists look consistent.
Does anything here show what other people chose?
No, and until 6 September 2026 the site implied otherwise. A “chosen by N% of lists” share appeared beside every option, a Most picked badge sat on one of them, and the second page was headed What people buy — the ten things chosen most often in the last 30 days. Nothing on this site has ever counted a list: the home you build stays in your browser and is never sent to us, so there is nothing here to count. Those shares, the badge and the ranking have been removed rather than relabeled.
What is there now is Starter picks: ten categories, one mid-priced option in each, chosen by us for a two-person home, in room order and not ranked. Each row carries the date its price was read at the shop. If real selection counts ever exist, they will mean one thing only — the share of lists built here that contain that exact model — and the count, the period and what we exclude will be written on this page before any number appears on a product.
What is this site bad at, and what should you use instead?
Four things, and none of them is going to be fixed by us this year.
| What we cannot do | Use instead |
|---|---|
| Tell you whether a sofa fits through your door. We never ask for a measurement | The product page at the shop, which carries boxed depth and width; measure the narrowest doorway first |
| Compare furniture prices across shops, for the reason above | The brand's own outlet or clearance page, and a search on the exact product name |
| Tell you whether an item is any good. We do not test products | Consumer Reports or Wirecutter, both of which buy and test what they write about |
| Say what a room should look like. We size, we do not lay out | The room planner tools the large retailers publish free, or an hour with an interior designer |
None of the four alternatives above pays us anything, and two of them will cost you money. We list them because a list of 21 items that fits nobody's doorway is worse than no list.
What we do not do
- We do not test products, so we do not give them scores, stars or ratings.
- We do not write reviews in the voice of someone who owns the item.
- We do not accept payment for a place on any list.
- We do not ask you to make an account to save a list.
- We do not count what you choose, so we cannot tell you what anyone else chose.
Questions we get asked
How does Fully Furnished decide what size fridge you need?
4 to 6 cubic feet of fridge per person, on top of a base for staples. That puts a one-person home at 14 to 18 cubic feet and a home of four at 26 to 36 cubic feet, a spread that implies a base of 10 to 12 cubic feet.
How much does it cost to run the appliances in a home?
19.26 US dollars a month for a one-person home and 37.37 US dollars a month for a home of four or more, counting only the 8 powered items on this list at 18.34 cents per kWh, the US residential average for June 2026 published by EIA on 26 August 2026. Heating, cooling, hot water and any lighting beyond the lamps you picked are not included.
Why is furniture listed at only one store?
Furniture is harder to match across shops than appliances are: a sofa is usually sold under one retailer's own name, so the identical piece rarely appears at a second shop under a name we can match with any confidence. Appliances carry manufacturer model numbers, so those are compared across every US store we can match.
Where can you see a whole category at once?
6 categories have a page of their own, and they are the six whose prices were read at the shop rather than typed in as samples: sofas, bed frames, mattresses, dining tables, rugs and dressers. Each one lists every option we carry, cheapest first, with the household sizes it suits and a link to the shop page the price came from. The other 15 categories have no page yet, because a page of sample prices would be a page with nothing in it worth reading.
Do this next
Open your list, pick the number of people in your home, and read the monthly power figure next to the total — that is the number most people forget when they price a whole home, and it is the only one on this page you can check against your own bill tonight.
Read next
Run by Kaz, an individual. Last updated 7 September 2026.