Furnishing a flat in The Hague from nothing

A Dutch rental advertised as kaal has no floor.

Not a worn floor, not a cheap floor: bare screed or bare boards, no curtains, and usually no light fittings either, just wires coming out of the ceiling.

The standard definition on the rental portals is blunt about it: “Er ligt geen vloerbekleding, er hangen geen gordijnen en de lampen moet je meestal ook zelf regelen.

Soms zit er een eenvoudige keuken in, maar verwacht geen moderne apparatuur of ingebouwde oven.”

People arriving from countries where an unfurnished flat still has a floor and a fridge lose a weekend to this.

Budget for it before you sign.

The three words in every listing

Kaal is the bare shell described above.

Gestoffeerd is the middle option: flooring and window coverings are in place, the walls are usually painted, and sometimes there is a hob or a fridge, though the portals themselves hedge with “dat verschilt per woning”.

Gemeubileerd is fully furnished, right down to cutlery and towels in some cases, and it comes with an inventory list you will be measured against when you leave.

Gemeubileerd costs more per month because you are renting the landlord’s furniture along with the flat, which makes it the sensible choice for a stay under about a year and an expensive one over three.

That calculation is part of short-stay and temporary housing.

Note that these are market conventions rather than legal definitions, so read the actual contract and, if you can, see the flat.

The floor, which is the big one

Laminate is what most people put down.

At Leen Bakker in September 2026 the cheapest laminate worked out at 11.24 euro per square metre, with the bulk of the range between roughly 20 and 35 euro per square metre and packs covering between 1.2 and 2.9 square metres each.

Prices move and that cheapest figure included a promotional discount, so treat it as the floor of the range rather than a quote.

On a 20 square metre living room, the cheap end is therefore about 225 euro of material before underlay, beading and tools.

Doing the whole of a small flat in the cheapest laminate is a few hundred euro; doing it in engineered wood is several thousand.

The rule that catches people out is the 10 dB rule. In an upstairs flat, the owners’ association or your contract will usually require the floor to sit on an underlay that reduces contact sound by at least 10 decibels, and many associations will only accept underlays that come with a TNO test report.

Some demand 12 or 15 dB.

This is a house rule or a contract term rather than a law, but it is enforced, and a floor laid on the wrong underlay can be ordered up again.

Ask the VvE or the landlord in writing before you buy.

And ask who owns the floor when you leave. The default position in Dutch renting is that you hand the property back as you received it, which for a kaal flat means taking the floor up again.

Against that sits the wegbreekrecht, your right to remove what you installed provided you leave the place undamaged.

In practice floors are very often taken over by the incoming tenant or the landlord for a payment.

Get that agreed in writing at the start rather than in your last week, and read tenant rights, deposits and contracts first.

Where to buy it

The nearest IKEA is Delft, at Olof Palmestraat 1, open Monday to Saturday 10.00 to 21.00 and Sunday 10.00 to 18.00, with the order and collection point opening at 08.00 on weekdays and Saturdays.

Smaland takes registrations until 20.00 on weekdays and 17.00 on Sundays, which matters if you are bringing small children to a full-day furnishing trip.

The delivery charges are where a Hague flat costs you extra, and IKEA publishes them plainly.

A parcel under 5 kg is 2.99 euro for IKEA Family members and 4.99 for everyone else, rising to 14.99 and 16.99 for 11 to 20 kg.

A single-courier truck delivery up to 125 kg is 39.99 euro.

Two couriers to the ground floor is 59.99 euro up to 200 kg, 79.99 up to 500 kg and 119.99 above that.

Carrying it upstairs costs exactly 14.99 euro more at every weight band: 74.98, 99.98 and 144.98 euro respectively.

In a city of narrow stairs and three-storey portiekflats, that is the cheapest 15 euro you will spend all month.

Pay it.

MegaStores at Van der Kunstraat 123 in Laak is the city’s woonboulevard: over 30,000 square metres, open seven days a week, Monday 13.00 to 18.00, Tuesday to Friday 10.00 to 18.00, Saturday 10.00 to 17.00 and Sunday 12.00 to 17.00, with 1,850 parking spaces from 1 euro an hour.

That Sunday opening and the cheap parking are the reasons to go there rather than into the centre.

Furniture shops in The Hague are concentrated here rather than on the shopping streets described in what each shopping street is for.

Praxis, Gamma and Karwei all have Hague branches for tools, paint, beading and underlay.

All three run store finders on their own sites and all three block automated checking, so look the branch up yourself rather than trusting a third-party address list.

White goods, which nobody warns you about

A kaal flat has no washing machine and usually no fridge.

A gestoffeerd one has them only sometimes.

Built-in appliances belong to the property and stay; freestanding ones belong to the outgoing tenant, who will often offer them to you for overname, a one-off payment, rather than carry them down the stairs.

That offer is usually worth taking.

If the cash is not there in the first month, appliance rental exists in the Netherlands as a normal product: a monthly fee covering the machine plus repair and replacement for as long as you keep it.

It is more expensive over three years and much cheaper in week one.

Check the connection before you buy anything.

Washing machine points are not universal in older Hague flats and a machine in the kitchen is normal here.

Getting a point moved or a socket added is a job for an electrician, and the utilities side of moving in is covered in setting up gas, water, electricity and internet.

Curtains, and the size of Dutch windows

Measure before you order anything.

Hague flats from around 1900, which is most of Statenkwartier, Zeeheldenkwartier and Valkenbos, have tall windows that off-the-shelf ready-made curtains do not reach, and the wide bay at the front is rarely a standard width.

A roller blind cut to size is the cheap fast answer for a bedroom; proper curtains on a made-to-measure rail is a week and several hundred euro.

You will notice that a great many Dutch front rooms leave their curtains open in the evening.

You are not obliged to join in.

Moving the furniture in

The single most useful thing the gemeente publishes on this: a verhuislift needs no permit. The council says so in as many words, “er is geen vergunning nodig voor het gebruik van een verhuislift”.

You do have to notify the road manager for your district by email, particularly if the lift will stand on the pavement for any length of time.

A crane is different and does need a takelvergunning.

Parking is looser than you expect and tighter than you want.

A removal firm may park and unload without paying during the move itself, but must pay during breaks and pauses.

You cannot reserve a space in advance under any circumstances.

It must be visibly obvious to a parking warden that a move is in progress, so leave the doors open and the ramp out, and a job confirmation letter helps.

Note that the council’s page is addressed to removal companies; a private individual in a hired van is on thinner ice.

Movers and storage firms in The Hague handle the lift and the notification as a matter of course, which is a large part of what you are paying for.

Doing it cheaply, which is entirely possible

The turnover of internationals in this city means good furniture comes onto Marktplaats constantly, and the prices soften in June and July when leases end.

Nine kringloop shops, most of them open on Sundays, cover the rest.

Both routes are in second-hand, vintage and kringloop, and the kringloop shops will often deliver locally for a small fee.

IKEA will also buy furniture back.

Bring it in within 30 days of the online valuation, with the original product label still attached, and you get store credit rather than cash; anything in good condition is resold in the Tweedekanshoek, which is also the first place to look on the way in.

Getting rid of the packaging and the previous tenant’s leavings is free: bulky waste collection costs nothing in The Hague, you choose the day, and the only real constraint is that nothing may be longer than 1.5 metres or wider or higher than 0.5 metres.

That is why Hague pavements are full of half-dismantled wardrobes on collection mornings.

The rest of the system is in rubbish and recycling.

Two last things.

Drilling into a 1900s Hague wall is not the same as drilling into plasterboard, and a job that looks like twenty minutes turns into an afternoon and a new drill bit; a handyman is covered in getting things fixed in The Hague.

And keep the receipts, because the total is larger than you think and it belongs in the arithmetic in the cost of living in The Hague and in the deposit conversation in renting in The Hague.

Sources

• Huurwoningen.nl on kaal, gestoffeerd and gemeubileerd (huurwoningen.nl/nieuws/kaal-gestoffeerd-of-gemeubileerd-huren-wat-is-het-verschil-eigenlijk/, last modified 11 August 2026): “Het verschil zit in de mate van inrichting en afwerking. Een kale woning is de meest basic optie, zonder vloer, gordijnen of lampen”; “Er ligt geen vloerbekleding, er hangen geen gordijnen en de lampen moet je meestal ook zelf regelen. Soms zit er een eenvoudige keuken in, maar verwacht geen moderne apparatuur of ingebouwde oven”; on gestoffeerd, “Soms zijn er zelfs wat basisapparaten in de keuken aanwezig, zoals een fornuis of koelkast, maar dat verschilt per woning”; on gemeubileerd, “Gemeubileerde woningen zijn vaak wat duurder dan kale of gestoffeerde opties, omdat je als huurder gebruik maakt van de meubels van de verhuurder. Ook wordt er vaak een inventarislijst meegeleverd”. These are market conventions, not statutory definitions, and are described as such
• IKEA Delft (ikea.com/nl/nl/stores/delft/): “Olof Palmestraat 1, 2616 LN Delft”; store and customer service Monday to Saturday 10.00 to 21.00 and Sunday 10.00 to 18.00; order and pick-up point Monday to Saturday 08.00 to 21.00 and Sunday 08.00 to 18.00; Smaland registration until 20.00 on weekdays and 17.00 on Sundays
• IKEA Netherlands delivery charges (ikea.com/nl/nl/customer-service/services/delivery/), read 11 September 2026: parcel 0 to 4.99 kg 2.99 euro for IKEA Family and 4.99 otherwise, 5 to 10.99 kg 4.99 and 6.99, 11 to 20 kg 14.99 and 16.99; “0-125 kg (per pakket max. 23 kg): 39.99” for a single courier; two couriers to the ground floor 59.99, 79.99 and 119.99 for 0 to 200 kg, 200 to 500 kg and 500 to 5000 kg; the same bands delivered upstairs or to a specific room at 74.98, 99.98 and 144.98
• IKEA buy-back (ikea.com/nl/nl/circular/buy-back/): valuation online, return to store within 30 days, the original product label required, payment in store credit, and “alle producten in goede staat worden doorverkocht in de Tweedekanshoek”. No percentage of original value is published on that page and none is quoted here
• Leen Bakker laminate range (leenbakker.nl/vloeren/laminaat/), scraped 11 September 2026: cheapest item “Laminaat Klik Belfort, Oak Silver, 2,49 m2” at “11,24 / m2”, reduced from a normal price of 14,99 under a “-10% extra” promotion; pack prices across the range from 16,42 to 49,73 covering 1,24 to 2,92 square metres. Prices move and the cheapest figure includes a discount
• The 10 dB contact-sound requirement is set out by flooring retailers and acoustic suppliers (floer.nl, akoestiekwinkel.nl, appartementeneigenaar.nl) as a VvE house rule or contract term, commonly requiring an underlay with a TNO report, with some associations demanding 12 or 15 dB and the NSG standard at 10 dB. No statutory basis was found, so it is described here as a house rule rather than a law
• The wegbreekrecht and the expectation of returning a property kaal are described by Dutch interior and rental advice sites (purperinterior.nl, fabinterieurhulp.nl). No primary legal source was reached, so this is written as general practice subject to the individual contract
• MegaStores Den Haag (megastoresdenhaag.nl/en/): “Van der Kunstraat 123, 2521 BR The Hague”; “open 7 days a week”, Monday 13.00 to 18.00, Tuesday to Friday 10.00 to 18.00, Saturday 10.00 to 17.00, Sunday 12.00 to 17.00; “parking from 1 euro per hour” and “1,850 parking spaces”; over 30,000 square metres of retail
• Gemeente Den Haag, parkeren voor verhuizers (denhaag.nl/nl/parkeren/waar-parkeren-en-kosten/parkeren-voor-verhuizers.htm): “Er is geen vergunning nodig voor het gebruik van een verhuislift”, with the road manager to be informed by email per district; a removal firm may park without paying during the move but must pay during breaks and pauses; a parking space cannot be reserved in advance; it must be visibly obvious that a move is in progress; and for a crane “dan moet u een takelvergunning aanvragen”. The page is addressed to removal companies
• Gemeente Den Haag, grofvuil (denhaag.nl/nl/afval/grofvuil-of-tuinafval-laten-ophalen/): collection is “gratis”, the resident chooses the collection day, and “grofvuil mag niet langer dan 1,5 meter zijn. En niet breder of hoger dan 0,5 meter”
• Deliberately not asserted: no washing machine or fridge prices are given, because none could be read on a retailer’s own page; no appliance-rental monthly price is quoted for the same reason; and no curtain or blind prices are stated. Praxis, Gamma and Karwei branch addresses are not given because all three sites refused automated access and third-party address lists could not be checked against them