As a student, you’ve probably a relatively fair amount of free time on your hands, so it’s likely that you find yourself entertaining quite a lot. Turning your living room into the perfect entertainment space need not cost the earth and can be done on a very tight budget; it just takes a little planning and a collective effort on the part of you and your flatmates.
Get rid of unnecessary clutter
However hard you try to avoid its accumulation, student living is synonymous with clutter.
If you’re going to make a concerted effort to turn your living room into the perfect entertainment space though, it’s a goal that you and your flatmates need to agree on aiming for wholeheartedly.
Make the living room a no-clutter zone: this means it’s not a place to hang washing, leave your dirty sports kit or your textbooks. Establish the ground rules early as it’s important to create boundaries and ensure that the comings and goings of everyday life don’t impinge on the look and feel of your entertainment space.
Layout is everything
When it comes to layout, the perfect entertainment space requires a little thought. Pick a focal point for the room – the television for instance – and arrange the sofas and armchairs in a circle to encourage interaction.
Furniture
When it comes to furnishing your entertainment room, employing multipurpose furniture is a real space saver. Instead of a traditional, large dining table, consider buying a smaller, lower lying, coffee table, which you can pick up at your local Sainsbury’s for less than a hundred pounds.
As well as taking up less floor space, your coffee table can easily double up as dining table, while the addition of a cheap poker set makes it the ideal playing surface for game night.
Another nice touch is to purchase a couple of bean bags. You can place these in the corner of the room, or behind the sofa, and bring them out when you have more than a few people around. Bean bags are also a great way to make your entertainment space feel more relaxed and homely.
Invest in the right equipment
Once the layout of the room is sorted, the perfect entertainment space has to have a decent sized television, DVD player and games console.
You can pick up a 30-inch flatscreen television from Sainsbury’s for under £150, which works out at less than £30 each if you’re living in a shared house of five. Also, the chances are that one of your flatmates already has a games console, which is great for doubling up as a DVD and music player, making it a real space saver.
If you really want to create the right mood in your entertainment room, consider investing a little extra in a couple of surround sound speakers; you can pick these up second hand, online for a fraction of the cost that you’d pay for such things new.
Add some quirky little extras
With the room laid out properly and your entertainment system in place, it’s time to add the little extras that will make your house the place to hang out.
Two quirky little extras that you won’t find in every student house are an optics rail – ideal for house parties – and a popcorn maker for film night. You can find both of these easily online and they will both cost you very little, while adding great value to the attractiveness of your entertainment room.
A great money-saving idea with the optics rail is to buy branded spirits at first, but then refill the bottles with more inexpensive own-label spirits.