Nobody forgets the bed. Everybody forgets the shower curtain rings.
The first-apartment problem is not the big purchases — those get researched for weeks. It is the forty small things you have never bought in your life because they were simply always in the house you grew up in. You notice them one at a time, usually at the worst moment, and each one costs you a separate trip.
Here is the list, grouped the way you will actually shop it.
Kitchen
The single most-forgotten room, because a kitchen looks finished when it is nowhere close.
- Can opener, bottle opener, corkscrew — all three, they are never the same tool
- A colander, a peeler, a box grater, kitchen shears
- One good chef's knife and a cutting board. A knife block is optional; a sharp knife is not
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Two sheet pans, one saucepan, one skillet, one stockpot
- Oven mitt, trivet, dish rack, dish towels
- Food storage containers, plus foil, parchment and plastic wrap
- Trash can, trash bags, and a second small can for recycling
Bathroom
- Shower curtain and liner and rings — three separate purchases, and everyone buys two of them
- A plunger. Buy it before you need it. There is no version of this where buying it later goes well
- Bath mat, hand towels, bath towels
- Toilet brush, and a toilet paper holder if the place has none
- Over-door hooks, a shower caddy
Cleaning
You cannot borrow these from a neighbor on move-in day, because your neighbors are strangers.
- Broom and dustpan, mop and bucket, or a vacuum
- All-purpose spray, glass cleaner, bathroom cleaner, sponges, scrub brush
- Rubber gloves, microfiber cloths
- Laundry basket, detergent, and a drying rack if there is no dryer
The boring infrastructure
- A basic tool kit — screwdrivers, a hammer, an adjustable wrench, a tape measure
- Picture hooks and command strips, because most leases forbid the fun kind
- Extension cords and a surge protector. Old buildings have two outlets per room and both are behind the couch
- Light bulbs in the fittings your place actually uses — check before you buy
- A flashlight, spare batteries, a fire extinguisher, a smoke alarm battery
- First-aid kit: bandages, antiseptic, pain reliever, a thermometer
- Step stool, if anything in the kitchen is above your reach
The stuff you buy in week two, having sworn you would not
- Curtains or blinds, once you learn what a streetlight does at 3am
- A doormat
- Somewhere to put keys that is not "the floor"
- A second set of sheets, learned the hard way on laundry day
Why put this in a list you can send
A first apartment is rarely furnished by one person. There is a parent offering to buy "something useful", a friend with a car on Saturday, a partner shopping a different aisle in the same store. A notes-app list solves none of that, because a line reading "colander" tells nobody which colander, at what price, from which store.
Build the list once as links instead. On MakerManifest each item starts from the URL of a product page, so the title and the picture come across on their own and anyone who opens the list sees the actual thing — price, store, everything — and can go straight to it. Add your own note to any item where it matters: "cheap one is fine", "has to be this size or it won't fit the nook".
Then publish it and send the link. Whoever you send it to does not need an account and does not need to install anything — they open a web page.
Two practical notes. A list stays a draft, visible only to you, until you switch it to Published, so you can build it over two weeks without anyone watching. And a free account gets 10 lists with 25 items each — a first-apartment list runs long, so either split it by room across a few lists, or move up to Basic where lists hold as many items as you like.
Start with the room you sleep in
The genuinely useful move is to shop in two passes: everything you need to sleep, wash and eat on night one, then everything else across the following month. Build the list in that order and the shopping sorts itself out.
Create a free account and put the boring stuff somewhere you will not lose it.