It’s fall season girls! This means summer is over and the school semester has started! While some students can stay home and commute to school, many of us stay in dorms or apartments, which might not be as spacious or cute as our homes. I completely get it! After living in dorms for the past two years and finally moving into an apartment this year, I think I’ve mastered how to craft your “home away from home” while on a student budget.
- Make a Pinterest Board for Inspiration
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I know everyone says this, but Pinterest really is that app. Simply type in “college apartment decor” and make a board of what you think suits your vibe. This gives you an idea of what color palette you want, as well as posters or furniture you think would accentuate your living space. Personally, I’ve realized that sage green, white, and pink are my comfort colors when it comes to decorating my space. It creates an earthy vibe that makes me feel calmer and less stressed while adding in that girly touch. This helped me find the perfect green and white bed sheets, a green bar cart and hot pink and white posters for my wall.
- Furniture/Storage Space
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Now that you have an idea of what you want your room to look like, you need to see what furniture and storage bins you need in addition to what the room comes with. Most apartments don’t come with a lot of furniture, just a bed and a desk for studying. I think furniture with places for storage are great to invest in as this leads to a less cluttered space, which is great for balancing stress as a busy and cluttered room can affect organization. Some basic furniture that I think is essential is a storage bin with drawers for some clothes that can’t be hung up, a lamp for your desk if the room isn’t well lit, and some mats and a shower curtain for your bathroom if you have one for yourself! However, depending on your budget, you may find other furniture helpful as well. For me, I decided to buy a side table by my bed to keep mundane things like hair ties, medication, and my chargers, a jewelry stand to rest all my necklaces and earrings in so they don’t get lost or tangled, and lastly (this a big one) a vanity. You may think this is a bit too much, but it leads me to my next point.
- Invest in what you need, not what might make your room look cool to others
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If you love a friend’s room and think “I need everything in here,” make sure you really want/need it first. For example, a lot of my friends decided to buy TVs for their rooms. Now, this might be helpful if you live in a dorm with no television in the common area or if you are a person that watches television regularly. However, I have a television in my common area and when I do watch television, it’s mostly Netflix so I’m perfectly fine watching it on my laptop! It all depends on what you prefer. Instead of getting a television, I bought a vanity to assemble from Amazon. It has a light up mirror, shelves, and drawers for all my makeup products, hair tools, and skin care products. I love doing my skincare and using makeup products, so I found this vanity to be very beneficial to me. I also got a mini bar cart which I use as a shelf for all my books, as I love reading. Someone who doesn’t read might not need this and that’s perfectly fine! Just focus on what you need as it’s your room.
- Incorporating everyone in the common area
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Lastly, if you live in an apartment, you might have a common area with a living room which you share with others. It’s important to keep this space clean and incorporate a little of everyone. For example, my roommates and I decided on common colors we wanted to incorporate and got a comfortable rug for the living room, couch covers since we didn’t like the original colors of the apartment, and we each put up a picture of an album on the living room walls that we each think represents us. My album is THINK LATER by Tate Mcrae.Â