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Your space doesn’t have to be perfect to feel like home.
When you first move into a college apartment, it can feel a bit intimidating.
You have blank white walls (and sometimes brick walls), generic furniture, and that harsh overhead lighting. It can be hard to look at all that blank space and imagine it actually feeling like yours.
As a third-year and someone who has now had three attempts at decorating a college space, I’ve realized that a homey space isn’t necessarily the prettiest or most perfectly coordinated one. It really is just a space that looks and feels like the person who lives there. Especially in college, decorating is less about making everything match and more about filling your space with things that make you happy, remind you of people you love, and tell little stories about who you are.
It’s not a hotel room! Your college apartment is more than just “the place you sleep.” You’re spending an entire year (or more) of college there, so have fun with it and make it your own.
Here are some of my favorite ways to turn a college apartment into somewhere that actually feels like home.
1. Good Lighting Changes EVERYTHING
The overhead lights that come in college apartments are convenient, but they don’t exactly create the coziest atmosphere… Instead, I have resorted to using multiple light sources around my room.
Warm lamps immediately make a space feel so much cozier. Sunset lamps, color-changing lights, and fairy lights are great too because they let you change the entire mood of your room depending on the vibe you’re going for. LED signs are another fun option because they double as decor! You can also get a battery-powered power bank so that you don’t have a bunch of wires everywhere.
You also don’t have to spend a ton of money. There are plenty of inexpensive lamps and lights, and having a few smaller light sources around your room can make a surprisingly big difference.
Here are some of my favorites:
2. Thrift Your Decor or Make It Your Own
Nothing feels better than finding a random treasure at a thrift store that feels so perfectly you.
Some of my favorite things in my room are things I’ve thrifted or found on Depop. Besides being cheaper, secondhand decor gives you the chance to find more unique pieces. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure!
I also love when something in my room has a story behind it. Maybe you found it for $3 buried on a thrift store shelf, bought it during a trip with your friends, or spent weeks searching Depop for it. Those are the things that can make your room feel less like a staged space and more like somewhere you’ve actually lived.
And your finds definitely don’t all have to coordinate. If you love it, that’s enough of a reason for it to belong in your space!
3. Make Your Own Wall Art
As a years-long loyal Canva Pro user, I LOVE making my own posters.
College apartments usually come with a lot of blank wall space, and making your own prints is one of the easiest ways to fill it without buying a million posters. I design mine on Canva, but Pinterest is also one of my favorite places to find inspiration and images.
The best part is that you can make a poster out of literally anything you want. Make a matchbox-style collage of everything you love. Find posters of your favorite music artists. Make UVA-themed prints. Paint something. Put your pet on a fun background, and suddenly, they’re wall art! Print pictures of your family and friends, quotes you love, places you’ve visited, or even random objects that have meaning to you.
Not everything has to make sense to other people, either. For example, apples remind me of my mom. If you look closely at my decor, you’ll find some apples!
I like ordering my prints in bulk from Center City Prints. The prints are inexpensive, thick, and of great quality, so I can cover a lot of wall space without spending a ton of money. They also make great gifts! You can make someone a custom poster and just add it to your bulk order.
4. Fill Your Room With Things That Tell Your Story
Let your hobbies and interests shine through your room! Your decor doesn’t have to come from the home section of a store.
I have thrifted knick-knacks, homemade stickers, things related to what I love, custom posters, and decorations I’ve made myself. I made a lamp out of a Tito’s bottle and am currently working on making a custom lampshade for it. I also found a mini surfboard at a thrift store, spray-painted it, and painted my name onto it.
Those things might not create the most perfectly coordinated room in the world, but that’s kind of the point! If someone walked into my room, they could learn a few things about me just by looking around.
Display things you’ve made. Keep little souvenirs. Frame something that means something to you. Put your hobbies on the walls and leave them out! If you play guitar, leave your guitar out.
5. Make Your Bed Ridiculously Cozy
Your bed is where you end up after a long day of classes, studying, meetings, work, seeing friends, and everything else college may throw at you. Make it somewhere you genuinely look forward to coming back to!
I personally love having lots of pillows, soft blankets, and fun bedding. This is also an easy place to add personality without permanently changing anything in your apartment. Get the weird throw pillow. Buy the blanket in your favorite color. Layer things. Make your bed look like somewhere you could happily stay for the next 12 hours.
College is exhausting sometimes. You deserve an insanely cozy place to collapse at the end of the day.
6. Add Color With Curtains and Rugs
Curtains and rugs can change a room SO much more than you would expect.
I especially love colored curtains because when the sunlight shines through them, the color casts into your room and completely changes how the space feels. And if your apartment doesn’t already have a curtain rod, there are inexpensive, renter-friendly options that don’t require permanent changes.
Rugs are another easy way to cover up the standard college-apartment flooring and bring more color, texture, and warmth into your space. Neither your curtains nor your rug needs to perfectly match everything else. Pick something you genuinely like!
7. Make Things Convenient for Yourself
This one isn’t necessarily as exciting as decorating, but I think a space feels a lot more like home when it actually works for you.
Use extension cords so your chargers are where you actually need them, and use Command strips to hold the cords in easy-to-reach spots. Put Command hooks in convenient places. Get a bedside caddy if you don’t have room for a nightstand. Use baskets or create designated spots for the things you reach for every day.
Pay attention to the tiny inconveniences that annoy you and find ways to fix them. If you’re constantly throwing your keys somewhere and losing them, give them a designated hook. If you always need your charger in bed, move one there permanently.
The last thing you want to do after a long day is crawl under your bed trying to reach an outlet. Your room should make your life easier, not harder!
8. Make Memories There
You can have all the cute lamps, posters, blankets, and thrifted knick-knacks in the world, but I think this is what eventually makes an apartment actually feel like home.
Create little routines there. Have a Sunday deep clean to reset everything for the week. Invite your friends over for sleepovers. Have movie nights. Cook together. Get ready together before going out. Find little traditions that happen in your apartment over and over again.
Eventually, your apartment stops being the random room you were assigned at the beginning of the year. It becomes the place where you’ve stayed up way too late talking with your friends, tried new recipes, gotten ready for nights out, spent lazy Sundays, studied for exams, and made memories you’ll probably associate with that space long after you’ve moved out.
Although your college apartment may be temporary, you’re still spending an entire year there. You might as well make it somewhere you’re happy to come back to!