After seeing my home in BH&G, my college dorm roommate sent me a Facebook message asking why in the world I hadn’t used my decorating skills back in the day when we put our sad room together. That’s a good question. . . Our room was really bad. (Although we thought it was pretty awesome, at the time, in all of it’s burgundy and hunter green glory.)
It seems that dorm rooms have gotten a little more glamorous since then. Look at this transformation by Kara Paslay Designs that I found in my online searching.
The depressing before. . .
And, the happy after:
My favorite part of the room is this $15 headboard made from an inexpensive (stained) piece of wood and some painter’s tape (sprayed gold).
This is great as a headboard and could also work on any wall where you need a big graphic piece. Read more about this project here.
Okay, confess. What’s the ugliest thing you did to your dorm room?
Oh our room was plain ugly, but we were too busy going to parties to decorate....this is a great post!
ReplyDeleteOh our room was plain ugly, but we were too busy going to parties to decorate....this is a great post!
ReplyDeleteFunny that you post this I'm in the midst of prepping for my one and only girl to head off to college....yesterday I spent sewing pillows to match her bedding, spray painting frames and DIY up a storm for my dorm diva!
ReplyDeleteGeesh, this takes me back! I think the worst thing was lofting my bed...so high I didn't have room to sit up. Oh, and the blue and red cherries bedspread. Yep, that was bad.
ReplyDeleteI don't think we really decorated our dorm room much BUT our sorority house rooms we decorated HIDEOUSLY!! My first ever DIY furniture paint job was on a curb find dresser that was leaning and missing drawers.... I painted a totally in your face purple color and hung fabric where the drawers went to use the space as shelves. It was BRIGHT. Wish I had a picture of it to have some good laughs! Wonder if 17 years later its still floating around Stillwater.....
ReplyDeleteMy oldest is leaving for college in a few weeks...and my basement has become "dorm room diva central" . Her future room makes the before pic shown here look glamorous! I have my work cut out for me to make it homey and comfortable. Can't wait to post about it after its done!
ReplyDeleteMy roommates and I covered our apartment walls with clear contact paper then sponge painted it royal blue with craft paint. Ugh.
ReplyDelete...that was also the day the chair I was standing on while painting broke and I fell into the TV and nearly busted it...horrible.
ReplyDeleteTaped pictures directly to the wall. No frames, no matting, just exposed pictures in no order on the wall.
ReplyDeletetrimmedandtailored.blogspot.com
hmm..i really like your headboard. which type of wood it exactly made from..?
ReplyDeleteWOW! I cannot believe just from a couple simple things how awesome that dorm room looks. Love that headboard.
ReplyDeleteToo funny about the forest green & burgandy...I lived in that same dorm room too. Floral forest green quilts, burgandy and forest green towels for the bathroom. Oh yeah!
Ahh....burgundy and hunter green. I'd almost forgotten about my college space, but you described it to a tee. What were we thinking?!? I wish I had as much style in college as the room you showed here--so simple, yet completely fabulous! Oh, and thanks for the photos of your cuties yesterday--I could have looked at several more.....they are so precious!
ReplyDeleteHoly smokes that is one amazing dorm room! If only I were still in college...
ReplyDeleteOh, good ideas! Erin from "Elements of Style" was my freshman roommate and a few years ago we did a post on our dorm room do-over. We've both gotten much more stylish since then!
ReplyDeleteHere's my half of our room:
http://journeychic.com/2009/09/28/dorm-style-my-freshman-room-revisited/
And Erin's half:
http://www.elementsofstyleblog.com/2009/09/dorm-disaster-revisited.html
I too was in the hunter green and burgundy phase of life when I was in college too I shutter to think that I used a microwave (and and ugly one) as my television and book shelf! Of course lets not forget the Stop and Yield signs from a high school boyfriend! Blech! (:
ReplyDeleteDorm Room...This is one drop dead bedroom! The chair is fab and that headboard idea is a keeper.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't exactly hideous, but kinda funny. I hung magazine pictures of rooms I liked all over. So maybe my room was drab, but at least I could look at other pretty spaces! I didn't end up studying design, but the love has stayed with me.
ReplyDeleteThat dorm room really is fabulous. Thanks for sharing!
Oh, what a cute idea for your ideabook. Our dorm room was so bad. It was the fist time I recovered a chair. . . in a horrible country plaid. And we even painted sunflowers on our loft. It was all together a hot mess.
ReplyDeleteLast year my daughter used tinfoil to create a border around her dorm room. She then drew graffiti style artwork all over it. I will give her points for being ingenious, but, YIKES!!! So glad that year is over!
ReplyDeleteyou know what? There are just SO many more options now than when we were in the dorms, it is much easier. My dorm rooms were very put together, but also a sign of the times: white wicker shelves, yellow and blue floral and stripe duvet cover, matisse posters. It was my english country phase!
ReplyDeleteHeather
loveyourspace.blogspot.com
I've never seen such a classy dorm room! I actually love that furniture setup. When I was in school my roommate and I changed our layout at least 4 times throughout the year. And what a beautiful headboard!
ReplyDeleteKatharine
http://justsqueaks.blogspot.com
So funny to see the before pic- all dorm rooms look just like that! Just wish I had the time or cash to make mine as cute as that!
ReplyDelete-Katie
Athomewhenimwithyou.blogspot.com
WOW - I'm so impressed by that room - it totally doesn't even look like a dorm room!
ReplyDeleteWe painted the trim PURPLE. I couldn't stand it even then.
ReplyDeleteYou know what's amazing to me? The fact that all college dorm rooms have the SAME furniture!!! My dorm room, 13 years ago, had the same bed, the same dresser, and the same desk with hutch. I don't know where this dorm room is, but I'm guessing it's not at a small Christian college outside of Boston. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI personally gloried in finding pictures from my favorite movies (Sabrina, Anne of Green Gables, Pride and Prejudice, Indiana Jones), and sticking them all over my wall with that lovely plastic tacky stuff that didn't leave any holes. {sigh}
OK..I'm probably dating myself, or at least telling you what crappy dorms our college had. But if my dorm room would have looked as nice as the "before", I would have thought it was heaven!
ReplyDeleteWe had old asbestos floor tiles, stark white walls, metal furniture, crappy closets. Sounds more like a prison cell! LOL!
And even if I would've tried to decorate "my side", chances are some of my roommates would have "undone" it anyway by messing up their side and mine! (Which happened often, BTW!)
Now...that being said, the "after" dorm room is fantastic! I could be a college student all over again in that room :-) So nice!
Holy dorm room bombdiggity! That chair has me drooling. I makes me think back to my first apartment.....whoa.
ReplyDeleteI am ashamed to let all of y'all know that my roomie(we'll call her Buffy)and I taped the fronts of cereal boxes all over our walls. There was array ranging from Capt'n Crunch to All Bran. It was gloriously ugly. But it was OUR collection and we were so proud.
ReplyDeleteThat headboard is glamorous! We stacked our 2 dressers on top of each other to save space. The weight of the top dresser cracked the bottom dresser. Oops!
ReplyDeleteI didn't live in a dorm, but I had some ugly apartments and in particular...made very BAD choices regarding bedding duvets, quilts, etc..Ugh. It hurts to look back at the photos.
ReplyDeleteThen again, it was the 90's. Greens, blues, purples and pinks..all one on bed with a bike propped next to it.
I know..sweet!
my roommate and I had one big loft where our beds were and the desk areas with a sofa were underneath. One night we got bored with a gluegun and started gluing all sorts of things to the ceiling (pencils, pennies in the shape of Orion constellation, and a half full bottle of oj)
ReplyDeleteGirls are decorating their rooms SO much better than 15+ years ago when I was in college. My freshman year (ahem, 17 year ago...damn that makes me feel old) I had a hunter green theme, I mean everything was hunter green. Phone, trash can, desk accessories, etc. Seriously, what made me think that was attractive? Bleah.
ReplyDeleteMy sophomore year, my roommate & I coordinated & decorated everything in chambray & red gingham. Red & white were our Christian sorority colors...we also had our letters, Sigma Phi Lambda, & the sorority symbol, lambs, all over everything. (Isn't your sophomore year the year it looks like a sorority house threw up all over your room?) And we had the SUPER tall loft. 8 foot ceilings in our room, close to 5.5 feet under the loft. It was an understatement to say you'd scratch your arm if you weren't careful turning over in bed!
My junior, senior & fifth years, I chunked the sorority infatuation, still used the chambray duvet but got a Ralph Lauren floral dust ruffle and decorated with accents of baby pink.
Thankfully style has evolved. Can't wait to see what it looks like in 11 years when my daughter starts college!!
PS. I know for a fact that the loft we had in 96-97, which was built in 1995, is STILL floating around the residence halls at Texas A&M. It was a well built loft, you just didn't want to sleep in it if you were drunk...dangerous to your health!
ReplyDeleteI had two posters with Leonardo DiCaprio!! (Titanic was a hit a year or two before, and let's just say I was a fan). :s
ReplyDeleteHa! I had a rainbow comforter...what was I thinking??? Clearly, I wasn't. Our oldest just graduated, and our youngest is leaving for Baylor in 2 weeks. I have had sooo much fun pulling things together for her room. Let's just say...it's a bit more sophisticated than mine! LOL
ReplyDeleteI didn't have a dorm room as I got married young and went to school at night. However, I think it might've been the same time you were that age since our first home sported a lot of hunter green and navy blue!!
ReplyDeleteFun! That is an elegant space for sure! I get cracked up by the PB Teen "dorm" catalogs. Um, yes, I'll take the $1200 loft bed for my dorm??
ReplyDeleteMy dorm room was very floral. I slipcovered the headboard and made a matching bulletin board but it was WAY too cutesy and coordinated. And the Buffy the Vampire Slayer poster probably ruined the look. My freshman roommate arrived with an ancient paisley comforter that had been half eaten by her hamster. She wasn't into decorating...
So cool! Wow! Beats the posters my roommate and I had hanging!
ReplyDeleteMatching "Jacque Penney" bedspreads -- blue & white chinoiserie/floral (neither one nor the other, really) that my mom then turned into a comforter in the guest room in my growing up home. She was going to get her money's worth out of it, by George!
ReplyDeleteOur dorm had tile on the floors and halfway up the walls in the bathroom. It was a decorating trend to wallpaper the rest of the wall with a coordinating contact paper. We had a green tile bath, so ours was done in a green ivy waverly-style print.
ReplyDeletethat headboard really is stunning & so easy & reasonable. i love it!
ReplyDeletehttp://ohhhsolovely.blogspot.com/
My freshman dorm room was three girls in one un-airconditioned room in Florida. Decorating it seemed almost pointless! One loft bed and one set of bunk beds took up almost all our space.
ReplyDeleteMy freshman dorm room at Carolina looked exactly like that first photo, except they didn't give us the 3 drawer dresser. My soph. year, we had cinderblock walls, so we painted them blue/white stripes and put wrapping paper over the bulletin boards to make the bland room look a little brighter.
ReplyDeleteThis is perfect timing as my oldest heads to university in a month. We are gathering inspiration for it. I am doing a post on this next month!
ReplyDeleteYour room was wonderful! My dorm days were so long ago, I don't think I was enlightened yet then!
ReplyDeleteNancy
Powellbrowerhome.com
Yeah I love that room that Kara did. She's so creative on the cheap. Love it. We just had whatever was given to us... so pretty ugly. I think I have some old pics of our first apartment. I know someone who did go all out with decorating her daughter's college room and it always felt a little overdone - no one else had drapes and all. If I had a do over, I'd definitely decorate it, as it's an outlet for me. I wouldn't let my mom do it, though. If it was my child, I'd encourage them to decorate, but on a very small budget so though it was nice looking, it didn't feel snooty. It just felt resourceful and creative. Plus, I love letting the child create... and learn how far money goes.
ReplyDeleteI'm ashamed to admit I hung up a big movie poster from Titanic! What can I say? I was young, the movie had just come out and I was in love with it! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm ashamed to admit I hung up a big movie poster from Titanic! What can I say? I was young, the movie had just come out and I was in love with it! :)
ReplyDeleteOMG I LOVE THIS! We want to redo our room but its so small. All the bedrooms are in our 1920's home. :(
ReplyDeleteI have you on my blogroll (hope thats okay) and wanted to let you know that I am doing a beauty giveaway worth $200! Check it out at http://borntobeblonde.com/beauty-giveaway/
I LOVE your blog!
I must admit that I still think my dorm rooms were pretty awesome ... at least considering the styles of the day. I installed swing arm wall lamps and hung wallpaper border (yes, awful, I know, but trendy then) with double-stick tape. Oh, and my dad installed closet organizational systems. Matching Laura Ashley comforters. The other girls on my freshman hall wouldn't show visitors my room because it wasn't what a typical dorm room looked like!
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing!! Wish i had the chance to do that for my dorm room. Our school was really strict.
ReplyDeleteMy college roommate and I chose dark blue paisley bedding and basically never cleaned our room while we lived there--it was a disaster! The funny thing is she and I both have design blogs now. Hers is www.keenandfitting.blogspot.com.
ReplyDelete-Lane
www.urbanorchardinteriors.com
Okay, this dorm room you showed is amazing and totally beats out mine, BUT I happened to think mine was cute 3 years ago :) http://michaelanoelledesigns.blogspot.com/2010/08/dorm-rooms.html
ReplyDeleteIf I could redo mine now, it'd be SO different, but boy did I have fun dreaming up mine! :)
Well, by the looks of these comments, I was in college a long time ago. I went to school in up state New York in the early 80's, and we all bought these hippie tapestries at the school bookstore that we draped from the walls and ceiling. Looking back now, it probably made the room look like an opium den.
ReplyDeleteFun monogramed bedding, and I LOVE that beetle pillow!
ReplyDeletecommercial furniture
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete