How much does it cost to furnish a studio apartment?

The three tiers, room by room

These figures use the same room categories and the same tier logic as our one-bedroom cost breakdown, with the separate bedroom and living room collapsed into one combined space, and a smaller kitchenette allowance. The per-item prices on every table below this one are live from Amazon rather than estimates, so the arithmetic is checkable rather than assumed.

The tiers are not quality grades so much as decisions. Budget means a used mattress frame, no sofa, a secondhand table and hand-me-down cookware. Mid means a new mattress and one piece of new seating. New-everything means exactly that, and most of the increase is furniture rather than essentials.

Kitchenette: $150 to $600

A studio kitchenette has less storage and less counter than a one-bedroom kitchen, which genuinely reduces the bill — there is nowhere to put a twenty-piece cookware set, so you do not buy one. The full room list is in the kitchen checklist.

Bathroom and laundry: $95 to $400

Unchanged from a one-bedroom, because a bathroom is a bathroom. The one studio-specific item is the drying rack: a studio rarely has in-unit laundry, and there is no spare room to put wet clothes in. Full list in the bathroom checklist.

Main room: $330 to $1,800, and where the real decision is

This is the line that decides your total. In a studio the bed is also the sofa, so the question is what you sleep on and whether you buy separate seating at all.

Our honest recommendation in a studio is the first or second option: a real mattress on a low frame, plus one chair or a floor cushion. Sofa beds absorb a third of the budget and are a compromise on the thing you do for eight hours a night.

Two cheap additions that change the room more than furniture does: a room divider or a curtain on a tension rod to separate the sleeping corner, and a second light source so the whole space is not lit by one ceiling fixture.

Tools, safety and the forgotten $70

About $85 at the budget tier, and the one category people leave out of their spreadsheet entirely.

The consumables line — roughly $70 — is cleaning supplies, light bulbs, batteries, toilet paper, trash bags, a shower curtain liner and a first-aid kit. None of it is memorable and all of it is needed in week one. Our budget essentials checklist itemises it.

The move-in costs that are not furniture

Worth planning for separately, because they land in the same month and they are often larger than the furniture bill:

• Security deposit — commonly one month’s rent, sometimes more.
• First month’s rent, and sometimes last.
• Utility deposits and connection fees — a few dollars to a couple of hundred depending on the provider and your credit history.
• Renters insurance — usually a few dollars a month, often required by the lease.
• Moving costs — a van rental, or a truck and two people.
• An application or administration fee — non-refundable.