How To Personalize Your Dorm Room

Let’s face it, the thirteen-square-foot dorm room with an overabundance of the color tan you’ve inhabited this year gives you the feeling that it’s not really yours. Besides the fact that this is completely true and you’re not even the first person to live there, the room in its bland move-in day state most likely dampers your creative spirit. If you’ve been living this entire school year feeling restricted by symmetrical, over-sized cardboard box where you sleep, I cannot advocate more the idea of adding some touches to release a little of that monotony.

Rearrange: I’ll start out with a warning, dorm rooms are small. There are only so many ways you can rearrange your furniture so that it will all still fit, and it requires a lot of planning ahead of time, unless you want to spend the night with your bed halfway out the door, the desks stacked on top of each other, and one wardrobe tipped over sideways with all your clothes in a mountain beside it. However, you can make your room feel at least a little larger by making better use of the space you have. My roommate and I unlofted only her bed this semester, creating a lot more open space near the window. Maybe it’s just because our beds are no longer a mirror image of each other, but making the right and left sides of the room look different certainly makes us feel less like caged animals with limited area to roam.

Walls: Seeing the same rejected Crayola “dirty eggshell” color on all four walls gets real old, real fast. Posters are highly encouraged, whether you buy them or make them yourself. For a little less conventional visual interest, I covered shoe box lids with scrapbooking paper, added pictures or quotes, and stuck them up with command strips. A corkboard is a practical alternative where you can pin pictures (print off everything from your Pinterest and make it real!). If you’re like me, that means an 11”x 15” board covered in JGL, F. Scott Fitzgerald quotes, Ed Sheeran and cats.

Utilize fabrics: You already bought your own sheets (I hope) in a color or print that expresses that perfect essence of you, but rugs, lounge/beanbag chairs, and additional pillows can add even more interest and color to your room. You can even go so far as to manipulate the interplay between you and your roommate’s colors. Unless you’re lucky enough to have a single, in which case, release the rainbow. Another cute idea might be to drape long strips of fabric over your bed for a canopy effect, if you can figure out the mechanics.

Lights: Criss-crossing strands of Christmas lights across your ceiling or around your bed frame are fantastic (command strips are your best friend). Just be prudent with the extension cords. Also, use pushpins to secure paper lanterns to your ceiling. Avoid actual flames inside though, because residence halls have this thing against fires.