Fun Ways To Spice Up Your Dorm Room Decor

With your dorm room being your home away from home for nine months out of the year, its important to the make your space feel as cozy and as "you" as possible. My roommate and I freshman year took it upon ourselves to put our individual touches on our room and we couldn't have been happier with the results. We loved spending time in our room and it definitely felt more like home because of a few touches we added. Here are just a few of the ways we spiced up our dorm room decor!

1. Wooden Letters
The wooden letters seen here are inexpensive and help give your room a more personal touch. I decided to place letters spelling out my name above my desk and my roommate did the same.

2. Wall Decals
These are such an easy way to add excitement to the boring dorm room walls, as well as give your room a more fashionable touch! They come in various sizes and designs and are easy to apply and remove from any type of wall.

3. Decorative Lamp
Including a decorative lamp, aside from the typical desk lamp or clip-on loft lamp, helps create a more inviting glow to your dorm room. A stylish lamp gives your room another light source aside from the harsh dorm lights and is another way to help tie in your dorm room theme.

Dorm Room Organization

One of the most important things to adjusting to college living is making your dorm room space not only functional but fitting towards your own style. Organization is key when arranging your dorm room and everything that goes inside of it. Storage, storage, storage! Creating storage spaces to hold all of your belongings takes time and a little trial and error to find what works best for you and your life. Here are a few of my favorite ways to organize my room in a fashionably college manner.

1. Plastic Storage Drawers
These are my favorite for storing everything you can imagine! From holding hair supplies, kitchen supplies, or even DVDS and media accessories, these are affordable and perfect for small spaces. My roommate and I had a particularly small dorm and we ended up stacking two, 3-drawer storage containers on top of one another. Perfect for narrow spaces!

Another way to put your unique touch onto these basic and boring storage carts is to line the drawers with a fun, printed scrapbook paper. Our dorm theme was damask print with gray and black, so we chose a paper to match, and taped it to the inside. This also helps with making the space appear more organized without being able to see the array of items inside the drawers.

2. Hanging Clothes Rack
The hanging clothes racks you can find at most major retailers are major space savers for your wardrobe space in a dorm.  Hang in the closet and stack multiple shirts or pants in each compartment. Life-saver!

3. Stacking things
This is one of the easiest ways to gain more space in a dorm room - stack things on top of one another! From stacking your beds to stacking your microwave on top of the mini-fridge, stacking helps make those items more compact and give you more room to work with!

Fashionably College

Back in my senior year of high school, I would have never guessed I would be where I am today. As my first year of college begins to wind down, the experiences I have already walked away with mark the beginning of a journey into where I'm supposed to be. A year ago, I would have told you I was going to major in event management at the University of Iowa. How things change in such a short span of time! I am currently studying apparel merchandising and journalism and mass communications at Iowa State University. Life sure has its ways of presenting you with the unexpected. I can't wait to share my experiences, lessons-learned, and goals with you!