Hello! I'm @Ryo54388667!☺️

I usually work as an engineer in Tokyo!

Actually, I got married this year, and my wife and I started life together in a new home! (By the way, I wrote about my marriage-hunting journey in this article)

This time I'm counting down the 10 best things we bought in the first half of 2026!

We furnished our place — furniture, appliances, storage — pretty much from scratch after getting married, so honestly, this was the most shopping I've done in my life (lol)

From all of that, here are the purchases that made us go "This was SO worth it...!", counted down from No. 10 to No. 1!

The ranking isn't by price — it's by "how much it changed our daily life." Which means that later in the list, an item under 2,000 yen muscles its way into the top ranks.

*This article contains affiliate links (PR) for products I actually use. Everything featured here was bought with our own money and earned its spot in our new home.

*Prices are what we paid or as of writing. They fluctuate with sales, so please check the links for current prices🙏

First up is Nitori's mesh tension shelf (wide, 32cm deep). We use it for storage in the toilet room.

Without any shelves, a toilet room gives you nowhere to put spare paper or cleaning supplies...

Wedge this between the walls, and the empty space up top turns into proper storage. No tools required.

As you can see, it's now the official home of our paper stock and a storage box. There's no going back to leaving things on the floor.

It costs 1,690 yen. It works far harder than that price suggests.

The first kitchen purchase that made me think "glad we bought this" — Yamazaki's range hood spice rack (Plate series).

It simply hooks onto the range hood, giving your seasonings a permanent spot right above the stove. Setup took about ten seconds.

With salt, pepper, and oil within arm's reach, cooking flows so much better. The hooks under the tray hold ladles and spatulas too, so the workspace around our stove opened right up.

Every seasoning and utensil we use daily, consolidated right above the stove.

It's around 2,000–3,000 yen. I also love the magnetic rack from Yamazaki's tower series — I'm steadily falling into the Yamazaki rabbit hole😅

Nitori's steel wagon "Trolli 4" (compact). 3,990 yen.

We liked it so much we bought two.

The first lives in the kitchen holding food and seasoning stock. The second sits next to my desk as a gadget cart. The compact size stands about 60cm tall — the perfect height to slide under a desk without hitting the desktop.

Here's the second one by my desk. It tucks right under my standing desk and works as a staging area for cables and gadgets.

All three shelves adjust in 2.5cm increments, so you can match them to whatever you're storing. The casters make cleaning easy, too. Assembly was simple.

Representing the washroom: ekans' laundry rack (tension-pole type, 3 shelves). It was around 9,000 yen.

Something I learned after we started living together: the amount of stuff a washroom has to hold is unreal. My wife's skincare, shampoo, detergent refills... all bulky, and once things start piling up on the floor, it's the beginning of the end (lol)

This rack gives you three shelves in the dead space above the washing machine. It's tension-mounted, so no holes in the wall — a big plus.

We line the shelves with fabric baskets and just toss in refill stock and towels. Lidless baskets make access instant, so even a lazy person like me keeps it going.

I love the white-and-oak look, too. The washroom — a space that clutters up easily — now looks put together.

Now for the furniture. LOWYA's Coupe dining table 3-piece set (90cm). A table plus two chairs for a little over 30,000 yen.

The deciding factor was the round tabletop. No corners means it doesn't block the flow of a smallish dining space, and the distance when you eat face-to-face feels just right.

Going round was the right call. Zero bulkiness — even a tight space doesn't feel cramped.

The natural wood looks more expensive than it is. And assembly was almost disappointingly easy.

If you're choosing a dining set for two, put this one on your shortlist.

From here on, it's the top 5 — the heavy hitters of our home.

LOWYA's Onoma 2-seater sofa (156cm wide, natural wood legs). It was about 36,000 yen.

The corduroy-style fabric feels great, and the moment we set it down I thought, "Oh — this suddenly looks like a proper home" (lol)

Here it is. We went with mocha. The muted color blends right in with all the wood furniture in our place.

At 156cm wide, it seats the two of us comfortably. The natural-wood-leg Scandinavian design also matches the dining set from earlier.

One caveat: the sofa weighs about 36kg, so carrying it in and unboxing it is a real workout. I recommend two people for the job.

RASIK's over-the-trash-bin kitchen board "Liora" (90cm, greige). 29,980 yen.

It's a 2-in-1 unit that stores your microwave, rice cooker, dishes, and trash bins in the space above the bins. It has a built-in outlet, so powering appliances is a non-issue.

The steel-and-woodgrain greige finish looks genuinely upscale for a kitchen. All our dishes for two fit neatly behind the doors.

We keep the toaster oven and kettle on it, with two trash bins tucked into the lower level. Appliances, dishes, and bins — the whole lot handled by this one unit.

And a confession: I did not assemble this one myself.

One look at the manual and I knew — "this is the kind that eats an entire weekend..." — so I hired a pro through Kurashi no Market, a local services marketplace. The result was flawless. If big furniture assembly isn't your thing, just hire a pro.

Third place is a dark horse: Toyo Plan's slim rolling wagon (12.5cm wide, 3 tiers). 1,880 yen.

Next to our washing machine, there was this awkward gap — maybe a dozen centimeters wide. A spot I'd written off: "nothing is ever fitting in there."

When this thing slotted in perfectly, I was far more moved than I expected. It's on casters, so you can roll it out to reach the back or to clean. Assembly was easy, too.

Look at that fit. The few centimeters between the sink and the washing machine became the official home of our detergent refills.

This purchase taught me a lesson: if you search hard enough, storage that fits your gap almost always exists.

If there's a gap at home you've given up on... don't give up yet!

Second place goes to WALL's wall-style TV stand V3 (swivel type, low, white oak). The stand itself is 39,900 yen.

It stands your TV up wall-mounted-style — no TV cabinet needed. You get that clean, mounted look with zero construction, and the living room instantly feels bigger.

The left-right swivel is more useful than I expected: you can angle the screen toward the sofa or the dining table. The cables hide behind the back panel, so the cord chaos around the TV is gone.

I'll show you the finished living room at No. 1, coming right up!

We added the optional multi-device holder and the magnetic power strip — both are earning their keep.

And the thing I want to shout from the rooftops: the assembly & installation service (4,950 yen) is worth every yen.

They handled unboxing, assembly, mounting the TV, and the cabling — briskly and beautifully. Just removing the anxiety of hoisting a large TV onto brackets yourself makes it a bargain at that price.

And the top spot goes to Hisense's 55-inch 4K TV 55E7N (Amazon-exclusive, 3-year-warranty model)!

Paired with the WALL stand from No. 2, this is how our living room turned out. That no-TV-cabinet silhouette is my favorite thing in the room.

The reason I chose it: sports. I wanted to watch sports on a big screen, so I hunted for a model whose panel could keep up with fast motion (a 120Hz panel, with 144Hz VRR in game mode).

Verdict: bullseye. Fast plays render buttery smooth, and the quantum-dot colors are at a level where you go, "This picture, at this price? Seriously??"

YouTube, Netflix, and other streaming apps launch instantly from the remote. Games run great on it, too.

It launched at over 130,000 yen, but I timed a sale and got it in the 80,000s. Picture, gaming, and streaming — the full package at this price is, frankly, a little absurd (lol)

One honest caveat: as the reviews say, the sound lacks body. That's just physics with this speaker setup, and personally it doesn't bother me at all — and if it bothers you, a soundbar solves it.

The Amazon-exclusive model also comes with a 3-year warranty — reassuring for an appliance you'll use for years.

These days, my favorite part of our new life is sinking into the No. 5 sofa on a weekend and watching sports on this big screen.

That was our top 10 best buys of the first half of 2026! Here's the list one more time.

1. Hisense 55-inch 4K TV 55E7N
2. WALL wall-style TV stand V3
3. Toyo Plan slim wagon (12.5cm wide)
4. RASIK kitchen board "Liora"
5. LOWYA Onoma 2-seater sofa
6. LOWYA Coupe dining table 3-piece set
7. ekans laundry rack with shelves
8. Nitori steel wagon Trolli 4
9. Yamazaki range hood spice rack
10. Nitori mesh tension shelf

Lined up like this... we really did buy something for every room — living room, kitchen, washroom. New married life is a force of nature.

I hope this helps anyone about to start married life or move in with a partner!

On the same new-life note, I also wrote about how we manage money as a couple. Check it out if you're curious!

If the second half of the year brings more good purchases, I'll write about those too. (Honestly, there were also a few purchase fails, so that article might come first...)

Thank you for reading to the end!

I tweet whatever's on my mind, so feel free to follow me!🥺