If you’ve ever lived in a sharehouse, you’ll know the group chat has a very specific lifecycle. Someone suggests buying something everyone agrees would be “so good”, there are a few enthusiastic reactions, and then it disappears beneath memes, someone’s dinner order and a reminder that the internet bill is due.
Which is why getting everyone to actually put money towards something requires a pretty strong argument. Nobody wants to be the housemate who spends $300 on something that gets used twice, but if everyone can get something out of it, suddenly the conversation looks a lot more reasonable.
The projector that turns a blank wall into the main event
The lounge room TV has had a good run, but there is something considerably more exciting about turning a completely normal wall into a massive screen. Particularly when you can move the whole setup somewhere else afterwards.
The new Hisense P1 Laser Projector is built for exactly that, with a built-in battery giving you up to 2.5 hours of untethered video playback* and projection up to 150 inches in Full HD. It’s portable enough to move between bedrooms, the lounge room and shared outdoor spaces, so the person who wants movie nights doesn’t have to fight with the person who wants to game.
And then there’s the footy. Put it outside for a backyard BBQ, make the screen absolutely enormous and suddenly the housemate who initially said “do we really need this?” is hogging the prime viewing position.
It can also do a bit more than put a film on the wall. Throwing visuals onto a blank wall can change the whole feel of a room, whether that’s something playing in the background while everyone’s hanging out or a bit of colour and movement when you’ve got people over.
The P1 also uses AutoMagic AI Adjusting 3.0 for automatic focus, keystone correction and obstacle avoidance, so you can spend less time trying to get the picture straight and more time actually watching it. Which is helpful because nobody wants projector setup to become the evening’s main event.
Supplied: Hisense
The outdoor furniture that makes the backyard worth leaving the couch for
A backyard is a nice thing to have, but if the only furniture out there is two plastic chairs and a table that wobbles when you look at it, you’re probably not getting the full benefit.
This is where a few decent outdoor upgrades start making sense. Add comfortable seating, a table that can handle everyone’s food and drinks and some shade, and you’ve got somewhere to sit when the weather is actually doing what Australian weather is supposed to do.
It also means that when someone says “BBQ at ours?” you won’t have to spend the next 20 minutes working out whether everyone can physically fit outside. Although whoever suggests the BBQ should probably also be responsible for the clean-up, because everyone else agreed to split the cost, not the consequences.
The kitchen purchase that earns its place in the cupboard
There are two types of things in a share-house kitchen. Things everyone uses and things someone bought during a brief period where they thought they were going to become the sort of person who makes elaborate breakfasts every Sunday.
You want the first kind.
A genuinely useful multi-purpose kitchen appliance can be used for dinner, meal prep, leftovers and those late-night meals where someone has decided they’re hungry despite having eaten dinner two hours earlier. When several people are using it throughout the week, splitting the cost starts looking considerably better than buying another appliance that spends six months hiding behind the toaster.
Just agree on where it lives first. Otherwise it’ll disappear into someone’s room and you’ll be back in the group chat asking where the hell it went.
The living room additions that’ll make everyone want to stay in
The living room is already doing a lot of work, so you may as well make it somewhere people actually want to spend time. A decent sofa, some extra seating, better lighting and a coffee table with enough room for everyone’s drinks can go a surprisingly long way.
You also don’t need to turn it into an interiors project that requires everyone to develop a shared vision for the space. This is a sharehouse, not a challenge-based reno show.
The best additions are the ones that make the room more comfortable without making one person responsible for maintaining a showroom. If it can survive a few takeaway nights and someone inevitably putting their feet on it, even better.
The summer upgrades you become very passionate about when the temperature rises
Nobody is thinking about the heat when it’s 18 degrees outside. Then summer arrives and suddenly everyone has a strong opinion about fans, windows, curtains and who keeps leaving the back door open.
A decent cooling setup is one of those things that seems boring right up until you need it. Add some shade outside and decent lighting for evenings and you’ve got a house that’s considerably easier to survive when the temperature decides to get ridiculous.
It’s also much easier to convince everyone to chip in when the alternative is four people sitting in the lounge room sweating and arguing over whether opening the window is making things better or worse.
By the time you’ve upgraded the lounge room, sorted out the backyard and added a few things everyone actually wants to use, the sharehouse starts to feel like somewhere you actually want to spend your time.
The Hisense P1 Laser Projector can add to that atmosphere too, giving the house a bit more personality when you’re having people over.
“Come back to ours” might quickly become you and your housemates’ favourite phrase, because when you’ve finally got the digs looking this good, you’re going to want to show them off.
