Decorate your dorm room on a student budget
by Celia Ayala and Miko
We all want a room like the one in magazines, but when you're a poor college student existing on handouts from the bank of mom and dad, those dreams are far away and too many paychecks in the future.
Creativeness can go a long way to making your room look chic and hot by transforming it into a proper hangout for you and your closest buds.
Painted liquor bottle vases
Empty liquor bottles can be personalized into cute vases with just a few coats of glass paint. Why spend so much on designer vases when Captain Morgan can save the day yet again? Alternatively, collect a group of clear bottles. Fill them with water and add different drops of food coloring to each bottle. Placing them near your window illuminates them, adding a mystical quality to your room.
Bursar paper temporary wallpaper
Some colleges don't allow you to alter your walls. Nails, glue, staples, tacks, and paint can get you in trouble or possibly fined by your housing department. One can find creative loopholes by making temporary wallpaper out of wrapping paper, art collages, or simple shape cutouts of poster board. Just attach adhesive velcro strips to the back and stick them on your walls. Adhesive velcro tends to hold even in the most humid dormroom climate. Don't ask how we found that out.
Milk carton crates
Painting and stacking milk carton crates can offer an endless variety of stylish results. They can become your new bookshelf or cd shelf - maybe even a new home for cute picture frames or treasured objects, or perhaps a place to stash eclectic finds.
Velcro window decals
Your window doesn't have to be bland. Taking coloured plastic wrap and sticking it to windows produces a stained glass effect, giving your room funky mood lighting. Cutting out shapes like hearts, flowers, stars and then taping them to your window personalizes your space.
Shoe-rack wall organizer
Tacking a shoe rack or a selection of old purses to your wall can add storage space where you're least likely to expect it. Putting micro plushies, flowers, pens and postcards in the pockets can maximize storage space in teeny-tiny dormrooms.
Storage container table
You know those big 6-gallon storage bins you used to haul all your crap into your new living area? Just put a sheet over them and voila! You have a new table for all the stuff leaking over the sides of your desk.
Bed sheet window curtain
Schools tend to have boring window treatments. Personalize your windows by taking cute bed sheets and utilizing them as curtain panels.
Maybe your roomie has some ideas for the room. Include them in your plans. Maybe they will even pitch in a few bucks to purchase a few things. Personalizing your room can be fun and change your space into something completely yours. Your dorm room can become your home away from home and a relief to classes and schoolwork. Take a bit of DIY chic, and make it so.
More Crafting tips
- More: Indie arts and crafts
Mission statement
Mookychick believes that climbing trees and riding giant turtles is more fun and girly than worrying about make-up. But if you want to worry about make-up instead of turtles? Fine by us. Be you feminist, kitten, punk, emo, indie, goth, witch, vegan, horror junky, intellectual, christian goth, corset queen, geek, unicorn, sea monkey... be you into alternative style, alternative health, spirituality, comics, manga, j-pop, harajuku or jock culture... we will always love you.
