Revamping Your Dorm Room

Feng Shui tips and tricks for a new year

With the start of a new semester, you may be dreading heading back to the room where you spend most of your time working and, perhaps occasionally, sleeping on that rectangular object with blankets and pillows on it (i.e. bed). However, this also gives you the perfect chance to change up your room and revamp your living space in a fun way, perhaps making the room less dreary. Here are some cool tips that you could use to change up your dorm room:

1)     Photos: Having come back from seeing friends and family, it can be nice to know that even though you have just left them, they are still close by. Walls commemorating friends and family can add to the empty space on your walls with sticky tack or easy to remove tabs that won’t damage the wall. If you are feeling extra creative, you can buy a piece of string, some clothespins and hang the photos off the pins, to create an artsy look to the scheme.

2)     Wall decals, text, and prints: These easy-to-remove stickers can be fun phrases, images, or pictures that can also add to your wall space and revamp your room a little. If you go to Etsy.com and type in “singlestonestudio,” you can get an idea of what I mean. Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowe’s are a few places where you can search to see if they have anything that might interest you.

3)     Posters: Walking through the University Centre, you may have already seen that cool sales can be going on, selling things like jewelry, scarfs, posters, and more. The Imaginus Poster Sale should be coming to the UC at the beginning of the semester, so keep an eye out for colourful, fun, or cute posters that you may be interested in hanging in your room. Posters are also a fun way to show favorite bands, celebrities, and TV shows to friends.

4)     Duvet covers, blankets and pillows: This is a fun way to add a bit of colour to your room — and also a comfy addition to revamping your room. A funky pattern or fuzzy pillow or blanket can also be a great help for when you want to sit on your bed to work on your computer or read a textbook.

5)     World map: A fun addition to your wall if you love travelling is to put up a world map and look at all the places you want to go or have already been. The university offers exchanges and work placements abroad to many different places around the world, which students should take advantage of. Having a map in your room can be a fun way to remind you of your plans to travel and see the world in the future — whether it be sooner or later.

6)     Fridge accessories: This may or may not apply to you, but if you have a fridge in your room, magnets and photos in frames could be a fun addition to your room and add a more personal flair.

7)     Add a little green: Wintertime can be, at times, dreary, so adding a little greenery to your room with a potted plant or flowers can make your dorm room even better. If you are worried about lighting or keeping up with watering it, cut flowers may last only for a bit, but can be a fun and temporary addition to your room, or low maintenance plants like cacti can also be an option.

8)     Plastic storage containers: Not exactly fun or creative, but these can be great tools to help organize clothing, shoes, or school work that seems to clutter your space.

These are only a couple of tips, but even rearranging your furniture in new areas or hanging some fun photos or sayings on your dorm room door can be a fun addition to your room. If you are feeling up to more of an arts-and-crafts task, taking old magazines and cutting out shapes and words can be a less costly and more fun way to create a cool look, as well. It can even be fun to have friends help with revamping your room, or hold a contest to see who can create the coolest or funniest ideas and designs to use.