When it comes to dorm rooms, moving, and decorating your tiny space for school, I'm your girl. Back in college, after living in the dorms for one year, I moved into a little apartment with 3 other girls, and from there moved into a duplex house with 2 other girls, then moved to Los Angeles and got to call this studio apartment home. Throughout my 4 years in college, I lived in 5 places, all with different looks, space, rules and regulations. One thing remained the same, however, and that would be the amount of space. All of them were tiny!
I know a lot of my readers are young girls who may just be going to off to college this year, or who might be moving into their first apartment or small house. I have a few pieces of advice, as well as my favorite places to shop for decorating your dorm room and / or apartments for school:
- We'll just get this out of the way first. Even though we want to focus on the design of the place, function comes first. Namely, storage. Large containers, boxes and baskets to shove under your bed or in a closet for extra storage is KEY. You can get creative by getting inexpensive ottomans / seats with storage under the seat. This way it does double duty by providing extra seating for guests and storing more sweatshirts, shoes, toiletries etc. I like these items for storage:
Storage for under the bed
Ottomans with storage
- Because the walls will most likely be white or neutral in color, it's all about the patterned bedding and fun wall decor. I came to college my freshman year with a bulletin board I upholstered in coordinating purple fabric {that matched our bedding!} We loved putting up our pictures there as it was personal and went with the room colors.
- Decorate with cute prints for your walls, hung with washi tape:
- Get a cute lamp for your desk to do homework with at night if your roommate goes to sleep and turns off the big light. Try Target or these from Pottery Barn Teen.
- Favorite places for dorm bedding (don't forget to buy Twin Extra Long if you're living in a dorm!):
*Urban Outfitters
*Pottery Barn Teen {This is where I got my black and white bedding you see above. They have great deals for bedding bundles}
*Target
*West Elm
- When you can't paint or hang much on the walls, simple and colorful or patterned curtain panels are a great way to make the ceiling look taller and to spice things up a bit. Try the same places as listed above for these things.
Hopefully this helped a little bit!
If you lived in a dorm already, how'd you decorate and what was the most helpful information you learned for small space living? If you haven't lived in a dorm or small apartment but are moving away this year, tell me all about it! I'd love to hear. If you need help finding special pieces for your dorm, I'm here to help and would love to send you my quick fix e-design packages.
Enjoy your day!
xoxo
My dorm roommate and I bought a piece of carpet that we used as a huge rug, since it was cheaper than buying a gigantic rug. It really helped to bring some color into the room, and some warmth on cold, early mornings.
ReplyDeleteI bought cinder blocks to prop my bed up on. That way I had extra storage space under the bed to fit larger containers. I got creative and got a bedskirt to hide the cinderblocks.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely LOVE the wash tape idea. How clever! Perfect for framing cute prints. Also, you save money on frames… and who doesn't need a little extra money saved in college!
ReplyDeletehazelberrypaper.etsy.com
Love that first pic of you and your room! We tried to use a lot of white bedding in the dorm room to make it feel as big as possible:)
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