I feel you. In most any major US city apartment rent for a one bedroom is $1000+ for a decent safe place. On a starting intern salary of mid $30's that's already half or more of your take home pay. Then finding decent furniture isn't cheap unless you go with Ikea or some other veneered plywood. Doing alterations to a rental seems pointless since it's not yours, yet you want to live in a place with some idenity. So instead you live out of boxes and spend every last dime on alcohol to forget the sad state that is post architecture school life.

Check craigslist...you'd be surprised how little people are sometimes willing to take for their furniture or other belongings when they have to leave town suddenly. Movers are so expensive these days it's sometimes just easier and cheaper to get rid of most of everything and start over again.

ikea is useful for little things, but i have been purchasing furniture from
www.westelm.com
and they seem to have very nice quality furnishings for a reasonable price. i just moved into a one bedroom and have been finding great deals on craigslist, as the above post said. i also have a few pieces of furniture that i am in the process of making for the apartment, which i can easily break down and take with me.

ive had good luck with modifying ikea and even target furniture. in most instances the furniture out there suffers only from nasty legs and bad hardware. once removed you are left with a pretty simple box. call a local sheet metal shop to fab new legs (shorter or taller can change the aesthetic quite a bit).

as far as the laminate issue, hardwoods being what they are these days, even super high quality (dwr and others) furniture are vaneered mdf. i like to find some things that look pretty boring and knock the legs off entirely and use minimal brushed stainless pulls (from ikea) instead of the nasty towel bar thing that seems to be everpresent. it usually ends up looking somewhat similar from a distance to well designed furniture.

oh yeah, west elm does seem to have some cool stuff. i wish they had a store close by to see the stuf in person though.

Hey, I just checked out west elm and from what I see so far it's not too bad.

-Thanks

Thrift stores and Craigslist is the only way to go. My place is alot better furnished than most of my friends with their Ikea crap. It takes looking without needing things though.... be patient and itll pay off.

Question on refinishing wood floors. Would anyone mind sharing their experience? About how much time should one commit? And instead of buying a sander, where/for how much can a person rent one? There's something about a really nice wood floor that appeals to me . . . I really think that it can make a huge difference on the feel/look of a place.

Now on to kitchens? Most places I've looked at so far have pretty standard cheap cabinets and all. What are some options?

Just cover everything in orange felt, black rubber and frosted plexiglass and walk around screaming, "feel the tactility of my architecture" to the top of your lungs!

Go minimal except for storage (get metro shelves or those industrial shelves from home depot for that, also HD has these great metal sawhorses in yellow or orange that make a nice desk with a door or piece of glass). Then pick up a few, nice old things from craigslist or thrift stores or those liquidator stores on the Bowery. You aren’t going want to move a bunch of Ikea crap around with you as it falls apart and becomes worthless. A good piece of furniture can always be put back up on craigslist and resold with minimal depreciation. Moving money is easier.

I even found a Haywood Wakefield dresser for $50 that I’m expecting to make some money on.

If you start to replace cabinets and other fixed, landlord-supplied stuff make sure you get something IN WRITING from your landlord stating that this is ok. Either that or you're going to have to have space to store the cabinets you remove (not likely in a NYC apartment) and put them back when you move out.
My roommate and I replaced some cabinets in our NYC apt - because the white melamine ones that were there when we moved in were warped, chipped, and filthy. We discussed this with the landlord when we moved in and he even had the super help us cart the old cabinets out of the building. We replaced them with new, much higher quality stuff, which we left there when we moved out.
But when we moved out, 3 years and 3 landlords later, we were billed for all the "standard issue" stuff that was no longer in the apartment.

You have to be careful about sanding floors too. An architecture firm (!) in a loft building I used to work in sued the tenant above them for damage that they claimed happened to their drawings and equipment caused by dust from the sanding above.

It's very difficult to re-do wood floors successfully - the sanders are hard to move and you'll end up with uneven nasty looking floor after many many hours of work - it'll be cheaper to find an inexpensive floor guy to do it. If you're renting it's probably not worth it unless you plan to stay for several years. Maybe you could get some quotes and work something out with the landlord. For kitchen cabinets I can only say, Ikea...

what u never saw trading spaces?

Alumintate is exactly right, you need to decide how long you think you are going to be in your current residence. Then weigh your satisfaction in replacing your current environment with the money, if any, that you may lose by doing this when you eventually move. I would say focus on the less permanent changes that can still make a big difference on the immediate apperance and feel of the house. These changes also tend to be less expensive than the more invasive things you have mentioned.