August and September are right down the road. That means school will be starting soon, especially for college students who live in dorm rooms during the school year. Tiny rooms, scratched-up white paint, rubber mattresses, noise. . . . When you come home to your dorm room, you want to feel comfortable. After all, this is your home for nine months and, if you can’t be comfortable in the room where you sleep, eat, study, visit with your roomie and friends, then where will you be comfortable? You won’t be allowed to crash in the library!
A big part of being comfortable is liking the environment you’ve set up. The decor. Even though your dorm room is tiny and looks like it’s been around for a thousand years, you can make it look attractive and comfortable.
Tiny Rooms for Two
The average dorm room is actually smaller than “average.” While sizes vary from college to college and even dormitory to dormitory at the same university, they are about 200 square feet. That’s about 100 square feet per roommate!
How are you going to decorate such a tiny space? Find the right accessories that will make that postage-stamp-sized room feel bigger, even if it isn’t.
Buy small mirrors and place them strategically around your room. Placing a mirror across the room from the window makes it look bigger.
Don’t be afraid to use up every inch of wall space. Shelves, cup hooks, pegboard—use them all. After all, if you undergo room inspections, you don’t want to be made to clean your room because it was too small.
Keep room accessories tiny. Hanging organizers are perfect for the dorms. They are flat and hold so many objects. Get a shoe organizer that hangs over the door. Voila! No shoes cluttering that tiny space.
A rolling cart with tiered baskets can be rolled from spot to spot as you need.
Small storage cases shallow enough to slide under your bed reduce unwanted clutter.
Side table with storage space. ‘Nuf said.
Decorating Doesn’t Have to Cost Big Bucks
Now, we get to the actual decorating bit. You know, those huge rock star posters. Or not. Why not buy a large wall photo of a favorite scene or area, like the Grand Canyon? Hang it up on a wall on your side of the room. Instant wall mural!
Line the edges of the bookshelves with washi tape. You jazz up a dull space and, even better, it’s easily removable at the end of the year.
Make a temporary headboard that lasts for the whole school year. Your bed won’t look as utilitarian as it currently does.
If you have a green thumb, find some small (even tiny) potted plants that will stay small. Scatter these around your dorm room to brighten up the atmosphere. Even better, buy some neon acrylic paint and dip the pots in the paint about halfway up the pot (just make sure you keep the little watering hole at the bottom open).
Floor cushions can add comfort to a tiny dorm room. Just make sure the cushions are small enough that you and your roommate can navigate easily through the limited floor space.
Twinkle lights. . . and photos. There’s no room for large frames, that’s for sure. Hang a string of twinkle lights along the full length of one wall. Using packaging tape, hang individual photos on the cord, allowing the lights to illuminate a few of the pictures.
Dorm Rooms for Guys
Find a mini-fridge that looks more like an amp for a bass guitar. Store your coffee mugs and some silverware on top.
Buy jersey sheet sets. Cool and ultra-comfortable! Plus, they won’t wrinkle.
Store additional belongings in a traditional dorm trunk. It also makes a great spot to keep a few (key word: few) things on top.
Buy a comforter set that’s clearly for a guy. Stripes say “guy’s room.” If you buy a full comforter set, you’ll also get a pillow case and sheets.
The rock poster is a must-have for a guy’s dorm room. Use this idea in a large tapestry. One plus: it won’t tear when you take it down at the end of your spring semester.
Closet space is at a real premium. Buy a shoe organizer that hangs on the closet rod, then folds up when it’s no longer needed.
Guys have to have some fun, too! Buy a magnetic dart set with a small stand. Put it in one corner of your dorm room. It’s there, waiting, when you have a few minutes. . . or you don’t want to do your trig.
Find a durable rug to make your dorm room look a little more inviting. Bonus: You won’t be standing on a bare, cold floor in winter months.
Choosing a Mattress for a Dorm Room
You may need to buy a mattress for your dorm room. Take the size of the room and bed frame into account. If the bed frame is for a twin bed, look for a mattress that’s 39 inches wide by 75 inches long.
Choose a simple innerspring coil mattress for your dorm room. You’re only using it for four or five years, so there’s no need to splurge.
If you’re going to need extra space under the bed, buy risers so you can raise the bed from the floor.
Dorm Room Like Home
If you’ll need to buy any furniture for your dorm room—this is doubtful, as universities and colleges do furnish dorms for their students—find dorm-sized furniture that does double duty. If, for some reason, your dorm room doesn’t have a closet, buy shelving units and set them up against one wall.
A loft bed allows room for a desk under the bed.
Go easy on the bold colors. Keep the walls white (you may not be allowed to paint them) and just use those bold colors as accents scattered around the room.
Buy under-bed storage systems for things you won’t need every day.
College Students and Healthy Sleep
Teens and young adults overwhelmingly seem unable to wake up at the crack of dawn for those early-morning classes. There’s a good reason for that. Your circadian rhythms changed early in your adolescence. This change has you feeling like you’re not ready for bed until it’s late at night. Unfortunately, that also means you’re going to wake later in the morning than you used to do.
No matter what your favorite bedtime and wake-up time are, you need to get a full night’s sleep. Students of your age need between seven and nine or 10 hours of sleep a night. Of course, some students need more while others function well on less.
This also brings up those horribly early classes—you know, the ones that start at 8 a.m. If you know that you just can’t function at 7:30 or 8 a.m., then choose later sections for the classes you’re taking. (Of course, you may not be able to get those plum later sections and you’ll have to deal with waking up early. Take comfort in knowing that it will be temporary!)
The Stylish Dorm Room
You may be allowed to make better use of the space in your dorm room. There’s lots of unused space, such as the areas higher up. If your college housing office allows this, raise your beds as high as you can, creating loft beds. Of course, you’ll need a small ladder to climb up when you want to go to bed.
By lofting your bed, you’ll have so much more room on the floor you can work with!
If the Housing Office says “no” to lofting your bed, those risers may work for “lifting.” Instead of only one layer of under-bed storage, you may have two layers.
Old dresser drawers (hello, thrift stores) can become wheeled under-bed storage. Just add casters to the bottoms of the dresser drawers. Decorate the outward-facing side of the dresser drawer so it looks attractive.
If you know who your roommate will be in the fall, start messaging that person during the summer. Discuss possible decor themes. Just do everything you can to keep the final purchases affordable. Discuss color themes (no clashing). Rather than patterned bedding, buy solid bedding. It’s probably a pretty good idea to go shopping when you arrive to your new dorm, so you can both buy what you need at the same time.
Find small furniture that serves several purposes. That ottoman can hide items and serve as a low chair.
The “c” word - clutter. Nothing makes a small place even more so than dirty clothes, glasses, mugs, smelly socks, books or binders. Keep everything in its place when it’s not being used.
Small storage items, such as trays or boxes, are worth three times their weight in gold. Use them to hold old class notes, books or your dishes (washed).
Lighting. Needless to say, it’s limited. Find table lamps and standing lamps so that you and your roomie have the light you need for studying.
Tiny Bedroom Ideas
If you’ve spent your childhood and teen years in a tiny bedroom, you already have all the skills you need for the dorm! Well, except for getting along with a virtual stranger.
You’ll need to add a few other techniques to your daily dorm life. If you don’t have a full bath in your dorm room (not many do), then you’ll have a communal bathroom with several shower stalls. You should have a sink and toilet that you’ll probably share with suite mates.
Buy an inexpensive shower caddy. You’ll keep shampoo, conditioner, bath gel, shaver and a bath sponge in here. Take it with you to the communal showers every time. An additional caddy can serve as storage for school supplies and electronics cords.
Buy some cork or dry-erase boards and attach these to the wall in your dorm room. Write down reminders (term paper research due by Oct. 15th!) This way, you have visual reminders and the board doesn’t take up very much room.
From the Beginning. . .
If you know your future roommate (or if you’ve met online), start with a color theme for your room. Grays and pinks? Blues and dark greens? The better-coordinated both sides of your room are, the more spacious it will look.
Buy storage baskets for clothing and anything that you can’t place into a closet or drawer.
Use the room’s layout to advantage. No, you don’t have much square footage, but you do have vertical space. Use existing shelves. If you aren’t allowed to hammer nails into the walls, use additional storage that stands against walls.
Make the lighting gentler and more inviting by bringing a floor lamp from home. Make sure the light bulb gives out a softer light.
That desk chair is going to get pretty uncomfortable before very long. Buy an inexpensive blanket and drape it over the chair’s back.
Because you don’t have very much room, those huge pieces of wall art will have to stay nome. Bring smaller pieces of art that you can artfully scatter around the walls on your side. Just remember, “less is more.”
Using Every Inch of Space
Two words: bunk beds. You don’t have to be a kid to sleep in a bunk bed anymore! How about a futon couch on the bottom and a regular bunk bed on the top?
As you think of how you’re going to cram all your things into a tiny room for a large part of the year, again, think vertical.
College Students, Alcohol and Sleep
You’re going to drink while in college. No matter what you told your parents, you will drink. Before you do, know this: too much alcohol can wreak absolute havoc on the sleep you need.
If you have a massive study session for midterms coming up, then it’s not a good idea to go to a party and get absolutely blotto on Friday or Saturday night. That study session is scheduled for ten a.m. You’re going to have a hard time rolling out of bed—let alone sleeping well. If the bed seems to have become a ship heaving on a storm-tossed sea, you’re going to be hugging that porcelain throne, likely more than once.
Alcohol messes with the deep-sleep pattern known as REM sleep. This is the stage of sleep that allows you to rest and gives your body time to recover from late nights of studying.
Knowing what you know now about alcohol and disturbed sleep, if you go to another party, let’s hope you don’t slam down those drinks you’re being offered.
Good Sleep = Good Grades
A good night’s sleep helps your brain recover and repair itself after all those late night study sessions at the library. “Oh, I’m young. I can stay up until two or three in the morning, or even have a few all-nighters. I’ll be able to recover pretty fast.”
You need roughly nine hours of sleep a night. If you’re pulling all-nighters one or two nights a week, you’re depriving your body of badly needed sleep.
Your grades will suffer. Not “may” suffer. “Will” suffer. Remember that dreaded “freshman 15?’ Part of that is linked to eating the starchy foods in the cafeteria. Another part of that is linked to the overeating you’ll do when you’re not getting enough sleep.
Did you know that, as you sleep, your brain secretes a growth hormone? This happens during the slow-wave portion of your sleep. Even more, during this period, your memory is busily putting together everything that happened during the day. Like all those difficult questions during calculus. This way, it’s easier to retrieve that tricky step seven of that particular calculus equation.
If you have ADHD and you’re depriving yourself of the sleep you need, you’re more likely to engage in troublesome behaviors.
So. . . study until you’ve studied enough. Go to bed. Turn down the invite to that third party of the week. Go to bed. And, before you get between the covers, spend at least one hour preparing your mind and body for sleep. Ignore all electronics. Listen to calming music. Take a warm shower. Turn your lights off so the room is dark. Make sure the temperature in your room is cool. Good night!