Best way to quickly furnish and unfurnished flat ?

[Tiddleandplonk]

Ds is about to live in an unfurnished flat. Short notice. We want to go and help him as this is hos post uni flat . He lives a good distance from us. He has no furniture at all. We are really into long term furniture .. think ercol.. ourselves. We know that he has no money . We would do it either makimg things like cool things from pallets and second hand furniture over time. If he does not want to do that which would be the most stylish ,cheapish furniture etc please ? Ikea .? He literally has nothing. Apart from a desk. .thanks .

Facebook market place

Facebook market place. Second hand furniture charity shops

I'd look on Facebook marketplace / eBay / Gumtree or even your council tip (ours runs a shop for stuff that's useable and it's really cheap - dining tables for £5 etc.)

If time isn't on your side, then IKEA furniture is very reasonable and lasts well. They'll even buy their stuff back from you to resell in their second-hand shop when you replace it in the future.

If you want it quickly and on a budget I'd go IKEA every time.

Ikea is great but I would also say local charity shops or Facebook marketplace. There are some excellent bargains to be had.
Floor lamps (really cheap in ikea) and posters and plants make such a difference. Ikea for plates and mugs etc.

British heart foundation is pretty good. Wayfair give you interest free for a year too and you can pay in installments.. Be prepared for 70% of your order to arrive broken though!

Ikea is the best bet as it lasts ages and can travel with him to the next house.

I was going to say British heart foundation. I've picked up some great bargains as well as donated when my grandad died.

We have a local Salvation Army that do furniture.

Agree with FB marketplace also. BHF has always struck me as expensive, to be honest, for things that have been donated and are second hand.

BHF or Salvation Army have furniture outlets. There are some private ones too but the charity ones generally have better control over fire safety labelling etc.
Otherwise if he wants new and isn't so worried about long term quality there are job lots on EBay aimed at landlords furnishing individual rooms. It's generally flat pack bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers etc. Really good value but aimed at short term/6 months let's so not necessarily long-lived.

Also free cycle sites (mostly on FB now) that have lots of stuff people k it isn't necessarily worth much but will give away rather than let it go to landfill.

Ive never seen job loys on e bay ! Good idea and thanks all x!

Bear in mind if it's his first flat / job he may not be there long.
DS1 moved into his first (own) house in lockdown and DS2 moved into an unfurnished rented flat in a city 100 miles away in lockdown. It was tricky! Though neither was remotely interested in decor or stylish, everything is purely for function.

DS1 bought online flatpacks and IMO the quality is awful, he would have got far better buying 2nd hand.
DS2s plan had been to buy everything 2nd hand on the grounds that he was unlikely to live there long term. He's moving soon so that turned out to be true.
FB is actually better than charity shops, sadly the stuff they get is often really poor and they charge more.
They both got a basic IKEA sofa which looks ok and you can get new covers.

There are often free Facebook groups for people looking for or giving away stuff. And Freecycle. If he just needs to furnish it cheaply, and can hire a van, he can probably get most of what he needs for free or very cheaply.

I did this about 10 years ago, I was living abroad and moving back to the uk, so I chose everything I wanted in the local ikea, emailed a list to a friend in the uk, she took it to Ikea and for a small fee they would get everything off the shelves for you and take it to the checkout, she paid and then took it to the delivery desk. It got delivered the day before I arrived home and I spent a week or two putting a whole flat of flatpack furniture together. Everything is still looking good, ten years later.

The issue is about hiring a van is he does not drive yet. I guess that he cd ask on fb if they cd deliver for a payment. ? Or hire a van each collection as he has no car. We live 5 hours away so either need to do ikea in a weekend or he needs to do it over time. Ive looked on e bay but i cant see job lots of ikea for flats.
He has got a strong sense pf taste .

Ikea do deliver, it's £40 for large deliveries but that covers everything in your order.

A strong sense of taste isn't really compatible with furnishing your first flat on a budget. He can pick up more individual pieces as and when his budget allows.

There is always a Man with Van on FB.

Thanks all. Am going to build him.a coffee table out of pallets with castors on . Make a bedside table from an old tea chest. I will frame cheap posters in monocrome shades. Put pound shop fairy lights in jam jars and candles in wine bottles . I will paint an old large pine mirror.
Then from ikea.. sofa . Bed and mattress. Small table and two chairs. A throw and plants . !

I have delivered furniture locally that I've been selling on Marketplace for a small additional fee. I have a van and just tie it in with a trip I'm doing in that direction anyway. I'm sure there are others who'd offer the same.
Alternatively, if you are visiting to help and drop off homemade tea chests and pallet furniture, could you not hire and drive the van for him? If he's organised, he can arrange it all to be collected in the one day.

That sounds very quirky OP!
Just beware you often can't put things on walls in rentals.
I hope he likes his new flat.

Thanks all. Am going to build him.a coffee table out of pallets with castors on . Make a bedside table from an old tea chest. I will frame cheap posters in monocrome shades. Put pound shop fairy lights in jam jars and candles in wine bottles . I will paint an old large pine mirror.

That’s very kind of you, but he is an adult! Let him do that stuff himself. Get him the essentials from IKEA - bed, sofa, kitchen stuff, lamp - and then he can get stuff from
Charity shops, Facebook etc over time to top it up.