My Apartment Essentials

Essential — “A thing that is absolutely necessary.”

-Oxford’s English Dictionary

To wrap up my mini-series of February, I thought I would share what I consider to be my apartment essentials.  These items are the ones that I utilize every day, and some are actually things that I just got for my apartment but don’t know what I did without them.

Backrest

When my mom purchased this for me for Christmas, her friend was surprised that I never had one of these during college.  And to be honest, I never really wanted one because I thought they were kinda ugly.  However, my mom ended up finding a cute one from Nordstrom (that’s actually sold out), but this is a similar one from PBTeen.  I would have to say that I’ve basically used this almost every day since Christmas.  My back used to cramp up when I would sit on my bed or on the ground doing homework, but this has relieved a lot of that pain.  And it’s definitely better than just using pillows to support myself.

C-Table

When I bought my furniture for my apartment, I ended up spending a lot at Pier One and got some money back in rewards.  So I purchased a c-table to go along with my couch and accent chair to have a more portable version of a side table.  I absolutely love my c-table and use it so much.  In addition to being a great place to put my laptop on, it also functions as a tv dining tray and an extra side table when you’re sick and stuck in bed (aka me last semester with a terrible cold).  It also acts as a great décor piece too!

Humidifier

My apartment gets pretty dry, which is not too kind to my sinuses.  I have a personal humidifier that uses water bottles as the storage mechanism for the water.  It releases the perfect amount of water into the air to take my apartment from really dry to the perfect humidity level.  To monitor the dryness in my apartment, I have a humidity/temperature display so I can see if I need to run the humidifier for a long period of time or not.

Bluetooth Connected Speaker

I talked about this Bose speaker in my December Obsessions post because it was also one of my Christmas presents.  I have an iHome that I got before I went to college almost six years ago (wow, I’m getting old), but like a lot of older technology, it requires that a phone be plugged in to work.  However, having a Bluetooth enabled speaker fixes those problems.  For example, I can take a call on the speaker and only carry around the speaker if my phone is charging in a different room.  It has a great sound and the battery lasts for a long period of time.  I highly recommend it, even though it is a little pricey. 

Lap Desk

This is another thing that I bought before I went to college.  I purchased a Vera Bradley one and I’m not sure if they still make these anymore.  One of my favorite things about it, and something I highly recommend looking for, is that it has a detachable cushion on the bottom of the wooden desk part.  That makes it easy to clean just the cushion.  I also would recommend finding one that will fit your laptop on it because I also like using it to keep my laptop from overheating if I’m doing some serious binge watching of Netflix while I’m on my bed. 

What are the things that are your must haves for your apartment?  I definitely have a lot more things that I use almost every day, but I narrowed it down to a short list so you don’t have to take an hour to read this post!