It’s a daunting experience moving from home to a room with pale cinder block walls. For a student stepping foot into an empty college dorm with the first load of moving boxes, the absent warmth of collected household heirlooms and familiar accents, from Afghans to wall clocks, can suddenly feel like lost nirvana. If you’re only a month away from your first day of moving onto campus, there are six steps you can take to prepare for a light renaissance.
Step One: Make a plan, in your head and on paper. The key to minimizing that horrible first jolt of understanding is to get a sense of what the room looks like before you get there. Form a bedroom decorating plan, even if you’re not normally a planner or decorator. (Why not make a bedroom makeover the starting line to independent adulthood, which unfortunately requires planning and decorating from time to time?)
Start by researching your design canvas. If you can’t take a tour and see the dorms in person, visit the university’s website. Many residential life departments maintain a home page under the heading “for prospective students,” and often those pages offer virtual tours of the standard college dorm. The images may not show an exact image of your room, you will still have an idea of what type of design and environment you are working with.
Now that you have that idea, lower your expectations a bit, in case the room you walk into that first day has a major unforeseen defect. Now that her expectations are a bit lower, feed her positive catchphrases and remember her perch abilities will kick in: her new slot hasn’t been properly claimed yet.
Step Two: Put some color in there, for the love of all things bright and cheery. There’s nothing worse than an all-white room, unless you’re a celebrity with access to those special white paints that somehow seem more elegant and soothing than a snowy Aspen hillside. Get everything out of your moving box, even if one side of the room starts to look like an exploded Crate & Barrel.
Step three: put something on the walls. Name the room with a picture of your family, your cat as a kitten, or a great group of friends. Please note that some residential living programs strictly prohibit pasting, nailing, or pinning posters to bedroom walls. If you didn’t get the summer mailing outlining the rules, make a few calls and find out. You’d be surprised how protective the eggshell-colored concrete colleges can be. Removable wall decals are one solution. Quality chalkboard, whiteboard and picture frame decal kits will last for years and can be transferred from wall to wall and room to room without crumbling or damaging walls. If you can prove that the paint is unscathed under the handy peel-and-stick chalkboard on your desk, you’ll definitely pass the first room inspection.
Step Four – Start over by dusting and cleaning all surfaces. Cover the mattress with one of those fluffy, hypoallergenic mattress protectors. Sweep the floor. Heck, if you have a beautiful view of the football stadium or the fascinating backyards of Fraternity Row, clean the windows. Your roommate will probably be impressed and you will find yourself in cleaner circumstances.
Step Five: Start putting things where they go and gradually make the place your own. You’ll be free to decide next week that you don’t like those books on the shelf after all.
Step Six: Keep a running list of all the unexpected little things you need. No one can anticipate the need for a container to hold a massive collection of highlighters. Imagine yourself as a student from day to day: what will your life be like? Will you enjoy a good cushion on the floor or would you prefer to study in bed? Are there many well-lit spots in your room, or will you need a lamp or two to offset a fluorescent glow?
Once the foundations of your personality have been sufficiently established, take photos to compare with the ones you should take on the day you move. The nesting process is natural and will have slowly revealed itself through the stubs accumulated from campus events, revised to-do lists, new room accessories, tons of school supplies only real adults own, and that new appearance of the things you like. brought from home
