Dorm Therapy

Posted on April 8, 2008
Filed Under Dorm Therapy | By Valerie Willis

 

White walls be damned

Dorm room

After twenty minutes in my new dorm room freshman year, I already felt creatively stifled by the standard stark white walls. I bought the brightest yellow paint Sherwin Williams had to offer (“Buoy Yellow”) and immediately put my mother and roommate to work with the paint rollers. The result was walls that looked like they had been thoroughly urinated on and a fine of $375 from University Housing. So how can you avoid the sterile-lab-white walls and the heinous paint fine at the same time?

Oversized wall stickers come in thousands of designs, colors and sizes and are easy to apply and remove. From life-size sports stars to teal octopi cut-outs, you’re sure to find a design that will remedy any dull dorm. There are even web sites that will customize stickers for you from a photograph, so you can plaster the pic of Fido next to a window, or have a portrait of mom overlooking your bunk.

Mirrors are a great way to add decorative feng shui to a room and they also make small spaces seem bigger. Look for light weight Plexiglas, acrylic, or plastic versions that can be hung with adhesive. They will be less likely to break (you don’t need bad luck to follow you through college), and they won’t break the bank either.

Big sections of funky fabric (or old bed sheets) are easily hung by cutting tiny holes in the top for stick-on wall hooks. Mix and match designs to overlap each other or use safety pins to display pictures or album covers and hang other lightweight souvenirs. For a girlier look, gather individual sections together with chunky ribbon or poufy bows. Be careful in your fabric choices, though: You don’t want a room that looks like your grandma’s powder room upchucked in it.

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