College Campus Series:
Making Your Dorm Room Your Own

This is the first post in a three-part series to help readers get themselves or their kids back to campus with ease this fall. Guest blogger Lexi Baltazar is a summer fellow at Ketchum, the public relations agency for FedEx Office. Lexi is originally from Dallas, and is heading into her senior year at Miami University of Ohio. Her three years at school have taught her many lessons on how to survive college life. We thought it would be great to share some of her learnings with readers who might be leaving home for the first time to move into their own place.

Leaving home and heading to college for the first time is a rite of passage. You pack up your things, shove them into a car (or in my case a U-Haul truck), and make that memorable drive to your respective school. You finally get to your dorm and see where you’ll be living for the next nine months. Another rite of passage: being utterly disappointed in what your dorm room looks like.

I remember the first time I saw my room. One word came to mind: jail cell. The space was small, the floors were cold and filthy, and the walls were a horrifying yellow-gray color. My thought was that it was going to be a long year…

Fast forward nine months, and I didn’t want to leave! I had made that tiny room my home and ended up growing quite attached to it.

So how did I do it? Decorating your dorm room is the easiest way to make your new place feel like home. All it takes is a little bit of work and your personal touch of creativity. Here are some easy tips to follow to make that dreary dorm room your own.

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• Talk to your roommate before you get to school to try and settle on a fun color scheme. That way everything you buy will show your individual style, but also look great with your roommate’s stuff.
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• Arrange the room to best utilize the space you have. If you’re working with a small room, bunking the beds may be the best option.
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• Liven up the room with window treatments. Curtains can really brighten up a space – no matter how small and jail-like the windows may be!
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• Choose a comforter that you love. Your bed is one of the first things people see when they come into your dorm room, so pick a fun one that you can live with all year long.
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• Print your favorite pictures to hang on your walls, a bulletin board, or to put in frames. This is probably the cheapest, fastest and easiest way to make your room your own. Consider blowing them up to poster size or made into custom prints. You could also use photo editing tools to do cool stuff with the images before you have them printed – like making all your pictures black & white or sepia tones to match the dorm room’s design. With your creativity and style, the possibilities are endless!

 

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