Several eons ago (paleolithic era, according to my kids) I lived in a college dorm room, quite a nice one as dorm rooms go. This was in England, mind you, so I suspect dorm rooms in the U.S., are generally more spacious (and come complete with an ensuite Starbucks). While dorm rooms and dorm facilities have evolved since my days at college, see then and now examples below – I read somewhere that the Rockoff Dorm at Rutgers University features a Coldstone Creamery, 7-Eleven and an expansive gym – I believe most dorm rooms the world over share some common attributes: never enough space for clothes or hair care products, boring blank walls, dismal lighting, lousy curtains, beds made for pre-teens, shelves that hold no more than one book of dangerous ideas or bottle of something delicious … you get the idea.
Then
Image courtesy of Gettysburg College, Digital Center Art (yours truly not pictured)
Now
Image courtesy of Rutgers University, New Brunswick Development Corporation and Time Magazine, 2010
While a major remodeling project sponsored by the Home Depot via your parents’ credit card or being featured on one of the many “designer-star-remodel-color-challenge-on-a-dime-organization-remix-divine-curb-appeal-creative-closet” reality TV shows is likely to put you at odds with your dorm neighbors and the college “police”, there is indeed hope.
I’ve listed below 10 important, and simple, dos and don’ts that you should consider when making the space your own. After all, your dorm room will reflect you, your personality, your tastes, your likes, your style. You’ll want to make a winning impression with your new neighbors in the real world – think life outside of Facebook.
Don’ts
1. Don’t line your dorm room walls with empty (or full) beer bottles or cans, especially those “lite” beers. This is so 1980s.
2. Please avoid the once ubiquitous Warhol, Marilyn, Che posters. See art-related “dos” below.
3. On the subject of posters, don’t use any that include the following imagery: cars, trucks, El Caminos, parts of the human body below the neck, UFOs, Godzilla movies, wrestlers, footballers, motivational slogans with images of mountains in the background, periodic table (unless you don’t want any new friends), vegetables.
4. Don’t fashion a table from user pizza boxes. Enough said.
5. Don’t assume revamping your Facebook (or Myspace) pages counts. Hanging out on Facebook can only go so far (yes, eventually you’ll have to socialize in person!), so you’ll still need a cool room.
6. Don’t hang audio speakers (if you’re beyond ‘phones and buds) on shared walls. You will quickly spawn a rivalry with your neighbors; one that you will not win after they invest in a professional Marshall amp and speakers having a total wattage that exceeds your zipcode by a factor of 10.
7. Don’t display any dead animals or tools or pictures of your parents or your rock collection (as in pebbles) , anywhere, in your room.
8. Don’t accessorize with any of the following: glitter ball smaller than 36 inches in diameter; multi-colored floor lamps (save these for your first retro apartment or pass them down to your kids, eventually); “plug-in miniature rock garden water feature” thingy; toaster oven (its use with cause odors to permanently permeate your cool clothes).
9. Don’t lay down any rugs that have a pile deeper than an 1/8th of an inch (you’ll be surprised what may end up lurking there), and avoid any fabric colors from any Martha Stewart palette.
10. Don’t confuse a well-organized display of your personal toiletries with good interior design. So, hide your hair products, shavers, tweezers, eye-liner, deodorant, puffs etc far away from other humans.
Dos
1. Get some real art on your walls. Display a well-edited selection of quality prints and paintings that show who you are, and that engage others. My top recommendation, of course, is art251 – a great source for affordable originals, prints and art-o-mat art at an astounding $5 per pull.
2. Buy a decent set of desk and floor lamps. You may not have time or inclination to open a book (during your first 2 years), but you’ll need light to illuminate a path around and over the inevitable piles of clothes. Good lights will let you change the mood of your room quickly and cheaply.
3. Check out online design resources to help you plan your space, organize your furniture. A great one is: DesignYourDorm.
4. Visit IKEA and/or Craigslist – probably two of the best sources for affordable furniture and accessories and even room mates (the latter only for room mates).
5. If you must make pictures of your family visible, display these randomly intermingled with a vast assortment of other random photographs of random objects. This will ensure suitable anonymity and distance.
6. Invest in a good set of sheets, blankets, pillows and comforter, and, for that matter, bring your own bed. You’ll need to insulate yourself from what has gone before. Better still, find someone to give you a new futon as a gift.
7. Buy storage bins that fit under your bed, which will allow you to instantaneously hide all the clutter that you will find the need to hide from people who don’t yet wish to know all about you.
8. Find an interesting potted plant and challenge yourself to keep it alive for more than one semester.
9. Buy a couple of white boards, one for inside the room, one to post messages outside your door. Yes, this is like your Facebook wall, and will add color and creativity to your non-digital persona (yes, you do have one and you may be surprised to find that others will wish to meet it).
10. Do have fun (and learn) – you’ll discover that it will be one of the best times of your life!
