Dorm decor

The move from home to the shared dorm room is often a major downsize in space for IU students. Managing to store everything and decorate without breaking Residential Programs and Services rules is challenging, yet every year IU students manage to transform their 10-by-13-foot rooms into homes that reflect their personalities and interests.

Senior Sara Wasser, a fine arts major, said the plain, white-washed walls of the dorm rooms are the perfect place to start.

“See the walls of your dorm as an extension of yourself and the things you enjoy looking at whether it be objects, people or colors, and try to explore that,” she said. “Art is important for a space because it provides inspiration, comfort, warmth and style.”

Organizing furniture is often the first step students take before decorating. Furniture differs from dorm to dorm. Some dorm rooms have modular furniture, which can be stacked and arranged in a variety of ways. Other dorms have a more permanent furniture setup with less opportunity for rearrangement.

In either type of room, students have the freedom to arrange furniture and decorate the room however they want, as long as it doesn’t break any RPS rules. New students are given a guide for approved items in the dorms, but Residence Hall Manager John Goshert said that as a general rule, any electric item that “glows red” is prohibited, such as toasters and heating devices.

Making efficient use of space is one of the biggest challenges students face upon moving into dorm rooms, Goshert said.

“Students do everything to get creative with the limited space we can offer them,” he said. “Sometimes TVs and microwaves get put in the closet to save space.”

Goshert said the easiest way to keep a dorm room uncluttered is to bring less stuff.
“Don’t bring too much to begin with, that’s where students run into trouble,” he said. “A lot of people just bring so much stuff that the rooms fill up so quickly from the start and they never find time to organize it well.”

Goshert recommends students bring essentials and then build from there. For students who need extra storage, he recommends plastic bed-support cups that elevate the bed off the ground to allow for more underneath storage space. Students can get them at Bed Bath & Beyond as well as Wal-Mart.

The plain white walls in the dorms cannot be painted or nailed into, so many students hang posters with nondamaging sticky putty to give their rooms character.

“The IMU poster sale each year is a great place to get stuff for your walls,” Wasser said. The poster sale is usually held during Welcome Week in the Indiana Memorial Union.

Goshert said one of the most popular dorm-room shopping destinations for students is Target. In fact, the Bloomington Target is the second-highest-grossing Target in the country during back-to-college week, said Bloomington’s Target Human Resources Executive Ericha Wilson.

“In the last couple of years our most popular items have been futons, bean bag chairs and all types of mix and match plastic storage bins,” she said. “A lot of students buy foam mattress pads and body pillows.”

For students who don’t want to spend a lot of money decorating their dorm, Wasser recommends getting creative with things they already own.

“You have to work with what you have and have fun with it,” she said. “If you have scarves, you can drape them across the wall. Once I cut up a Hawaiian lei and pasted the flower pieces around my friend’s dorm. Any effort that you put into something will make it more interesting and enjoyable to be around.”