The struggle of making a small, cinderblock room feel more like a home away from home than a jail cell is a struggle all on its own. The added pressures of classes and much needed time with friends leaves little brain space for fixing a dorm’s decor, apart from spending as little time inside the place as possible. However, there is hope for creating a livable space that you might actually want to (gasp!) live in.
1. Shop at places with “college” sections.
Superstores such as Target and Walmart, offer college dorm sections for the desperate student in need. Zainab Nyelenkeh, a senior kinesiology major, is a huge fan of Target for dorm shopping. The beginning of the semester they have a good little college section where they have chairs, pillows, bedsheets and wall decorations all in that corner; Nyelenkeh said. You’ll find a lot of colorful stuff. Her room decoration budget averaged to be around $200, a price Nyelenkeh thinks is worth it. “Last year I didn’t like my room, I didn’t make an effort,” she said. “This year with the decorations it makes me want to stay in here. I feel comfortable.”
2. Personalize It
If there are things inside your room you like you might find yourself liking your room. Junior Isabelle De Leon, a junior jazz drum music and pre-med double major, has that personal touch in her dorm. “There’s a lot of stuff in here that my friends gave to me. When I graduated from high school they gave me a college basket filled with things I would need like hangers and snacks,” De Leon said.
For posters of movies or bands that are favorites of yours, online sites such as Amazon are good picks. “They’re pretty cheap,” De Leon said. Pictures of friends and family are also good decorating tools. De Leon used a corkboard, decorative paper, and pictures to create wall art for her door. “I really like those because they are something that you can never get rid of,” De Leon said. “They’re memories that you can have forever.”
3. Get creative!
Sometimes the most unexpected items can become a dorm room decoration. Christmas lights from home or a pretty blanket pinned to the walls can add much needed flair. Junior government and politics major Davia Coke-McKay decided to pin a sheet of bubble wrap to her wall. “I got a microwave and it came with it. The room seemed bare and my roommate and I decided to be creative and we hung it up,” Coke-McKay said. “Like abstract art or something, it’s always good to be creative. We didn’t intentionally buy it. It’s finding functionality.”
Breathing life into a dorm’s dead walls can seem too impossible to tackle. However, with a little shopping savvy and waking up that brain outside of the classroom walls, it can turn into your palace.