Wednesday | February 08, 2012
Dorm rooms can go from grim to glorious
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By
Cheryl Truman
18 August 2006
LEXINGTON, Ky. – When you get your first look at a dorm room, your instinct might be to run away.
You’ll probably have four grim walls, most likely concrete block painted in a color suggesting that you’ve been involuntarily committed; two twin beds that might give off the faintest air of mustiness; and a set of battered desks and chairs.
And from this, you’re expected to concoct a cozy little nest that’s so alluring you never want to return to Mom and Dad’s?
“Pretty much it’s a nightmare when you first walk into a dorm room,” says Jeff Gawronski of the online retailer DormBuys.com, which offers everything from space-saving gadgets to combination packs of bedding or cleaning supplies for the college student who wants it all selected, collected and ready to go.
Even so, prettifying a dorm room can be a daunting task.
Fortunately, hundreds of thousands of students have done it before you.
Consider the finalists at Centre College’s 2006 dorm room decor contest. From silky pink stripes to clean bright corals and limes to an inflatable Tiki doll and matchstick bamboo wall covering, Centre students showed that they can decorate with a lot of imagination – who would think to showcase an inflatable Tiki doll? – and not a lot of money.
Those students take the same steps that any homeowner would when redecorating: Pick your colors, your accessories and your theme. Then try to figure out a way to tie it all together.
Lexington decorator Beth Harper, aka “The Lone Rearranger,” says it’s all about covering up the room features you don’t like and making a very small space seem more open and inviting.
The solution: color, fabric and light. “You definitely want to do color in everything possible,” she said.
Put fabric on the walls and windows – even bedsheets, a fine source of cheap and colorful covering, will work. They can be dressed up with tension rods or Velcro.
An added benefit: Fabric muffles the sounds that ricochet off the block walls. If you don’t want to put fabric on the walls, buy a big mirror and lean it against a wall to make the space look larger. And move the furniture against the walls if possible, so you have at least the illusion of a little space to move.
Gawronski of DormBuys.com says that when space is a premium, consider using your trunk as a coffee table, or buying a “mini-mantel” that stretches over the top of the bed and eliminates the need for a bedside table.
Accept that your dorm bed is going to double as a couch. Jazz it up with big pillows – and coordinate bedspreads with your roommate if possible. Add clip-on lights around the room, because you and your roommate will rarely be doing the same thing at the same time.
And, Harper says, that means you guys, too. Even though you might not be threading pink ribbons through wall fabric, you can have a room that is more than a series of tatty Jessica Simpson posters, a pyramid of Coke cans and a comforter.
More-masculine colors – orange and brown, or black and brown and taupe – make a room look updated and fun without being what Harper calls “froufy.”
Here are the steps to getting your dorm room into shape:
-First, cover the walls. Posters are cheap and abundant. And if you’ve ever seen The Learning Channel’s Trading Spaces, you know that a digital camera, a printer and some inexpensive framing can yield stunning effects on the wall.
The school probably won’t allow you to paint or otherwise permanently alter the dorm’s, er, distinctive color scheme. Fortunately, there is fabric and unusual-but-cheap items, such as matchstick bamboo.
-Do something about the floor. Your dorm floor is likely to be some variety of tile or linoleum that has seen years of dormitory furniture dragged across its surface.
Luckily, carpet remnants are affordable, abundant and sound-muffling. If there’s carpet, don’t hesitate to put an extra layer of your own newer, brighter and cleaner carpet on top of it. And if you don’t want to go the route of full carpet, remember, the neighborhood Wal-Mart carries washable area rugs.
-Light it up. Your standard dorm room probably will include only an aging overhead light and possibly an anemic built-in desk lamp.
You can do better.
Harper suggests freeing up desk space by suspending lights from above the desks. Target and Home Goods sell trendy fixtures that also are fairly cheap.
Centre student Jeremy Ware’s tropical-themed room won his college’s contest for best decorated. It’s complete with bamboo, raffia and mini-lights such as you would find on a Christmas tree.
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© 2006, Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky.).
Visit the World Wide Web site of the Herald-Leader at http://www.kentucky.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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