Furnishing a Temporary Home After a Loss
Nobody plans for the second home. A fire, a flood, a storm, a relocation, or a job across the country, and suddenly you need a place to live and everything that goes in it. The place is usually the easier half. Temporary Housewares ships boxed kits nationwide for the other half, and housing itself is by 1st Choice Living. Here is how to think about the rest.
Request a kitStart with what the place already has
Furnished rentals, corporate units, and travel trailers each come with different things. Before you buy anything, walk through and list what is there. A furnished unit generally has beds, a kitchen, and a bathroom. What it usually does not have is the household items: pots, plates, sheets, towels, cleaning supplies. If your housing is an RV, 1st Choice Living’s page on on-site RV housing describes what comes with the unit.
Room by room
- Kitchen
- Something to cook in, something to eat off, something to cut with, and a way to make coffee. Cookware and bakeware, dinnerware and flatware, glasses and mugs, knives and utensils, and small appliances.
- Bedrooms
- Sheets that fit the bed, a mattress protector, pillows, and a comforter or blanket for each bed. Count the beds before you count anything else.
- Bath
- Towels, washcloths, a bath mat, and a shower curtain.
- Cleaning and laundry
- A broom, a mop, a vacuum, and a laundry basket. The things nobody remembers until the first mess.
- Living
- Something soft to sit under. A throw and a couple of pillows make a room feel less like a waiting room.
Where the money question comes in
If your housing is covered under a homeowners policy’s Additional Living Expense coverage, ask your adjuster how your policy treats household items, and keep your receipts. We can provide an itemized kit list. For the housing side of a claim, 1st Choice Living has a plain-language guide.
One shipment or many
You can build the list from store runs across a week, or you can order one kit that ships nationwide with tracking. Every Temporary Housewares kit can be customized: swap, remove, upgrade, or add at the line-item level. Skip customizing and the kit ships as listed.
Different situations, different starting points
- A family displaced by a loss: ALE Essentials, described on its own page.
- Corporate relocation or a longer stay: The Corporate Crashpad.
- A short stay or one missing item: The Bare Bones, which lets you order exactly what you need.
- A student: The Dorm Dropbox, which we ship out and you ship back.
- A host: The Airbnb Refresh.
Questions
- What do I need to furnish a temporary home?
- Start with what the place already has, then cover the kitchen (cookware, dinnerware, utensils, coffee), the bedrooms (sheets, pillows, and a comforter for each bed), the bath (towels and a shower curtain), and cleaning supplies. A boxed kit delivers all of it in one shipment.
- Does insurance cover housewares after a loss?
- That depends on your policy and your carrier. Ask your adjuster how your Additional Living Expense coverage treats household items, and keep receipts. We can provide an itemized kit list.
- Can I order just one or two things?
- Yes. The Bare Bones is for exactly that: order only the bedding, or only the coffee maker.
- Can I change what is in a kit?
- Yes. Every kit supports swap, remove, upgrade, and add at the line-item level. Skip customizing and the kit ships as listed.
- Do you provide the housing too?
- No. We handle what goes inside. Housing is our parent company's work: see 1st Choice Living.
More answers in our common questions.