Dorm Room Decorating

(me in my tiny house Junior year of college)

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:

via

- 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

interior design website / services / portfolio

4

Back to School & Dorm Room Decorating Ideas

*my bedroom from my house in Seattle

When it comes to dorm rooms, moving, and decorating your tiny space for school, I'm your girl. 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 the past 4 years, I've lived in 5 places, all with different looks, space, rules and regulations. One thing remained the same, however, and that would be the 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:

Clear boxes
Long clear box with wheels to roll under your 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. Finding inexpensive wall art and prints to tape up with washi tape is a great way to decorate the walls without making permanent holes in the wall, or sacrificing style.  Check out how my friend Stephanie did just that here:

via // shop: stop and smell the peonies

- You can find some cute washi tapes here.

- 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 this Target one or these from Pottery Barn Teen here.

- 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. Pssst-- they're having a bedding sale now!)
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.

Alrighty! Hopefully this helped a little bit! My last tip? Bake chocolate chip cookies on your first night in the dorms. You'll make friends really quickly. That's what I did :)

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

12

Finally...My New Room!

I'm so excited to share my new room with all of you! I arrived at our new apartment on Friday and have been busy decorating ever since.  Here's the reveal!

My new Made By Girl print (:

My homemade calender over my desk.  I like to see my schedule and homework big so I remember everything I need to do!  Tutorial on how is here (:

Desk area with my gum ball jar inspired by Juicy Couture's displays.  You can see them in my dorm room from last year, also!

More of my apartment to come later this week!

Love and Decorating My New Bedroom,

13

Dorm Rooms

It's time to start thinking of dorm room decorations! Now, this next year I'll be living in an apartment with some friends (super excited...another post to come on decor for that!), but last year I remember having a blast picking out the cute things for my dorm. You definitely have to get creative when living in a small room. Looking back, I think ours was just about as cute as they come :) When people would walk in they'd be in shock of how well everything went together. Then I'd tell them...

First of all, we went to high school together and have been planning all summer. And second, I'm an interior design major and she's visual communications.

Then it all made sense.

The whole idea was to make it feet like "home" even though I was two states away from my real home. I wanted it to be bright and fun since outside is so dark and rainy. So here is how my process went:

1. Find a graphic bed spread that was affordable and I'd love for my entire 4 years of college. (Pottery Barn Teen had great mark-downs last year around August.)

2. Pick colors. A main color and an accent color.

Easy.

Purple & lime green.

3. PERSONALIZE! I went a little crazy with personalizing ordinary objects I bought at Target or Michael's, but only because I was so excited :)

Here's just a few of the things I did in my dorm room:

This was my favorite thing in the room. Yes, they are decoration. Yes, I was inspired by Juicy Couture. And yes, people tried to sneak the gum balls when I wasn't looking :)

This is an ordinary bulletin board I covered with fabrics that went with the theme of the room. I simply applied the fabric with hot glue and a staple gun and lined the edges with a purple ribbon so the frays were hidden. I'll be using it in my apartment this year, but I'm going to paint the frame black so it's more dramatic.

Every dorm room needs some type of window treatment. It's one of the best ways to turn a room into YOUR room! Instant cure for the hospital/dorm-like feeling. You can also see the two plants on the window sill. It was a good way to give the room life. Then they died halfway through the year...either because I'm a bad gardener or because there wasn't enough sun in the room. I prefer the second one.

We were lucky enough to have our own sink and vanity in our actual room, so we bought cute bathroom accessories and I painted the small canvas there for a pop of color. The wire dress is purely decoration with the lavender ribbon tied around its waist.

My roommate and I each did our first initial for above our bed. We bought the wood letters at Michael's and we each painted our own and added rhinestones for a finishing touch. Under my "M" is a wall decal from Aaron Brother's with a picture of my best friends and I at the beach.

This was the most fun project. Lamps! I KNEW the lamps they provided would be terrible so we bought these plain lamps at target and bought a 1 inch purple satin ribbon and hot glued it around the base of the lamp. Then, I accented the ribbon with a strand of fake pearls. It made it feel more classy :) Adorable lamps for $20! (If you wondering, the lamps they provided were just as bad as I imagined and stayed under my bed for the entire year.)

This was our finished product. I can't believe it's already completely dismantled and ready for the next set of freshman girls to move into come September. Maybe I will stop by next year and see how they did it! The cute lime green ribbon rug you see on the floor was a rug for my room at home, but it fit perfectly with the colors so why not throw the 10 pound rug in the car, too?! Cute, but totally not functional. I think it lost half its ribbons. Oh well! Sometimes cute outweighs function. The girls who wear heels all day can tell ya about that.

So, tips for girls and guys going off to college:

~Make your room a fun and relaxing place to come home to each day.

~Give it some color! College classrooms are WHITE. You need some color when you get back from class.

~You will need more storage than you think. Bring baskets, the small ottomans from Target, storage cabinets and another bookshelf if you can.

~Bring those self-adhesive hooks and plasti-tak so you can hang curtains and picture frames since you can't put holes in the wall.

~If you do put holes in the wall, fill them with toothpaste at the end of the year :)

Questions or want advice? E-mail me at michaelawarner90@gmail.com! I'd be happy to give out ideas or offer my opinion!

Love and Cute Dorm Rooms,
Michaela

5