Brienne Collison needed a couch for her new apartment. So she headed for Craigslist.org, a popular starting point for twentysomethings hunting for apartments, roommates and affordable used furnishings. Collison, 24, found a stylish sofa that looked almost new and fit her budget, and she figured she had covered all the bases after measuring her apartment doorway to make sure the couch would fit.

But she neglected to get the dimensions of the service elevator. "My building is fairly old, and the elevators are very narrow," says Collison, who lives in Falls Church, Va. After struggling to carry the couch upstairs, she found that her measurements were slightly off and the sofa was about an inch too big to fit through the door. Collison ended up parking the couch at her boyfriend's apartment until she could sell it.

For first-time apartment dwellers, whose digs are often tiny and temporary, the keys to making a new place livable are to think small and versatile. Look for pieces that can do double duty -- they'll work now and can make the transition if you plan to move in a couple of years.

Tammy Schoppet, founder of Rental Decorating Digest (www.rentaldecorating.com), is a fan of storage ottomans, which can serve as footrests, tables or extra seating while concealing blankets or magazines inside. JCPenney's Storage Ottoman with Tabletop, for instance, sells for $150. If you have room for blankets but not overnight guests, Plow & Hearth (www.plowhearth.com) has an ottoman that opens into a bed ($200 plus $30 shipping).

To organize your clutter, look for a coffee table or side table with drawers, advises Jill Davis, an interior decorator in Geneva, Ill. For a wide selection of such pieces, as well as trunks designed to double as coffee tables and end tables, check out Home Decorators Collection (www.homedecorators.com, or www.homedecoratorsoutlet.com for marked-down pieces). The Apothecary Media Storage Cabinet ($249 plus $45 shipping) looks like an old-fashioned library card file but is designed to store your collection of CDs and DVDs.

Moving up

Don't throw your money away on "disposable" furniture. Instead of buying a cheap TV stand, for example, put your TV in an armoire that can later be moved to an extra bedroom to store clothes or linens. If you're handy with a paintbrush, you can choose the look you want with JCPenney's Ready-to-Finish Brentwood Entertainment Armoire ($400).

Save money and still serve your guests in style by forgoing a formal dining set in favor of outdoor furniture that can be shifted to a deck or patio in future years. The Westport dining set from Pier 1 Imports ($99 for the table, $69 each for chairs and $79 to splurge on a matching wine rack) is made of woven rattan and wrought iron for a sidewalk-caf look.

If wood is more to your liking, check out the Carmel dining set at Crate & Barrel (www.crateandbarrel.com). The five-piece set is solid wood with an oiled teak finish. Originally $795, the set was recently listed on the Web site in the outlet section (with end-of-season leftovers and discontinued items at discounted prices) for $499 -- a deal, even with the $100 delivery charge. (Crate & Barrel also has outlet stores across the country.)

EMAIL ARTICLE | PRINT | REPRINT ARTICLE | SUBSCRIBE TO KIPLINGER MAGAZINE |

FIND THIS ARTICLE HELPFUL?

SIGN UP FOR DELIVERY OF COLUMNS AND SITE UPDATES