College goes Chic– Dorm Room Style

It’s finally here, the moment you worked your entire high school career for…College! While everyone departs to their sep­a­rate uni­ver­si­ties, it finally sinks in that you will be on your own, left to take on daily tasks without the help of your par­ents. Pro tip: write EVERYTHING down- or else you will forget things. On the con­trary, no par­ents!! While a tear or two may be shed in honor of your depar­ture, most fam­i­lies arrive at a mutual con­sensus that some time apart is nec­es­sary - three cheers for your inde­pen­dence! In a guilty attempt to hide their growing feel­ings of joy, for having the house entirely to them­selves, par­ents will dive into helping you with one last task, and you can let them! This task will be most likely be moving you into your new dorm room and helping you to get set­tled. As a reflec­tion of your new found inde­pen­dence, take a step toward indi­vid­u­ality and strive to look for dorm pieces that are out of the ordi­nary.  Break the mold of the stereo­typ­ical “one stop shop” dorm room. Make your room the envy of your friends by blending func­tion with fun and col­lege with chic!

Most dorm rooms will pro­vide you with a set of fur­ni­ture that will match everyone else’s in your hall (and prob­ably will seem like a color that won’t match any­thing) but that doesn’t mean you can’t make your room a haven from stressful days and THE spot that everyone will want to crash in. Here are some sug­ges­tions on how to trans­form your 120 square-​​foot rec­tangle living space into a dec­o­rated dorm room that you will never want to leave.

1. Wall Acces­sories: Bland, blah, and boring. One day schools will realize that stark white walls are not the way to go in small con­fined places (or so we hope), but until that day, it is our job to trans­form the space with wall acces­sories! Art­work and prints pose as a great alter­na­tive to paint for cov­ering large amounts of wall space and can also be found at very rea­son­able prices. Try mixing printed quotes in with other prints for a change of pace and never stray from a mix­ture of color, black, and white. A good gallery wall will incor­po­rate pieces in a 

Sea Urchins

variety of sizes, along with pops of color to add per­sonal flare. Don’t be afraid to hang some per­sonal sketches or paint­ings that you might have accu­mu­lated over summer when you felt the urge to be “artsy.” Art­work is not the only wall acces­sory that can bring life to an oth­er­wise dead-​​looking wall. Look for ver­sa­tile pieces that can be reused over the years. Pro tip: gold adds a touch of elegance.

Oscar Wilde Quote

Hug Me Pillow

2.Pillows/​ Rugs: People stress over finding the per­fect comforter/​ duvet for their twin extra long bunk, but what many people don’t realize is that a simple duvet can easily be dressed up with the right pil­lows. Adding pil­lows to your bed will help per­son­alize its trite dorm-​​room nature and instead, make it your very own. Stack them on in all colors and sizes, prints and pat­terns, to create a com­forting space that you will be able to melt into during a Net­flix binge. Pur­chasing a large quan­tity of pil­lows may seem exces­sive, but keep in mind that larger pil­lows can be thrown on the floor and used as a small pouf when friends come over. This brings us right into our next topic: rugs! Com­fort is all I can say here. You may be drawn to the intri­cate pat­tern of one rug, but if it’s not some­thing you can see your­self laying on through out the day, don’t pur­chase it! Opt for some­thing with a subtle pat­tern that you wouldn’t mind walking on your bare feet with, like a causal throw from Jonathan Adler!

Jonathan Adler Zebra Rug

#seri­ously pillow

Gold Scis­sors

Kate Spade Note­card Set

3. Desk acces­sories: A small and restricted desk space makes it easy to fall into a habit of cram­ming objects any­where they will fit, encour­aging clutter. Fight this problem with stream­lined desk acces­sories that look so nice, you may even want to do your home­work, just so you can admire your oh-​​so-​​studious looking sur­round­ings. Snazzy scis­sors, acrylic trays, and a Kate Spade pencil case will do the trick! Make sure to include a set of cards for when you and your best friend decide to com­mu­ni­cate as pen pals, and need to send out some reminders of how much you miss each other, snail-​​mail-​​style. Scatter other sur­faces with pic­ture frames filled with snap­shots of friends and family from home to help remind you of your former life.

Kate Spade Pencil Pouch

Kalypso Lamp

4. Lighting: All of the great decor that took you so long to color coor­di­nate among fur­ni­ture and acces­sories would be a waste if it not illu­mi­nated in the right way. In addi­tion to the stark walls, dorm room lighting is a serious design problem as well. Squeeze in lamps (or plug in sconces if you’re feeling adven­turous) any­where you can to help deter com­plete reliance on the uni­versal over­head lighting that will surely make every­thing in your room sud­denly become unbear­able. Despite the lack of a year-​​round Christmas, Christmas tree lights are a great source of lighting that will work in con­junc­tion with your lamps, pro­viding the dim, but still well lit, living area that you envisioned.

Kat­rina Gourd Lamp

Nest Candle

For the final touch on your subtly chic dorm room, light one of your favorite can­dles (shhh… no one will tell the RA). Have a couple new scents on hand, but start off with a familiar one that will remind you of home. This will help to aid your tran­si­tion into your new space by ema­nating a small but dis­tin­guished homely com­fort. It may seem like a daunting task at first as you tran­si­tion into a new and inde­pen­dent lifestyle for the first time, but having a room that you will enjoy coming back to after a long day will make all the difference!

Dorm pillow