How to Decorate a College Dorm Room with Color

My first dorm room was not unlike a prison cell. I walked in and saw a desk, a chair, a chest of drawers, a bed, a wardrobe, and white concrete block walls. It was depressing and didn’t feel like a home.

Luckily, decorating a dorm room is easy. If you don’t get along with your roommate, just decorate your side, if you get along then you can decorate the whole room together.

There are a few key things to keep in mind:

COLOR. Most dorm rooms are white with tile floors, they’re drab at best. The first thing any student will want to think about is a color scheme for the room. Whether you want to build off of one color or just use every color is up to you.

Perhaps you should think about the different qualities certain colors carry. The study of color has become a science, might as well put it to use. Here are some basic colors:

âÂ?¢ “Warm colors.” These are reds, oranges, yellows, golds, and others; they are the brighter colors on the color wheel. They are exciting and stimulate the brain. In design these colors tend to pop out at the viewer, especially against a neutral background. If you want a loud, bright, vivacious room the warmer colors are the way to go.

oRed is the warmest of the warm colors, in fact some studies have shown that people have physical reactions to read, such as increased heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure�so maybe not too much red.

oOrange is a quieter color. It has red, but also yellow to tone it down. It is usually associated with energy and makes some people hungry. Orange stands out without being too commanding.

âÂ?¢”Cool colors.” As you can guess, cool colors do the opposite of warm colors. They are blues, greens, lavenders, silver, and others. They tend to recede where warm colors pop out. They’re calming and relaxing colors.

oBlue is one of the most popular colors and with good reason. We associate blue with the sky, the ocean, jeans, and other comforting things. In some people the color blue helps them sleep, as such it’s popular in bedrooms. However, it can be a depressing color so it is best to pair blue with a warm color to achieve a balance.

âÂ?¢Green is another color in nature. Green reminds us of grass, the forest, trees, springtime, and other things in life and nature. To me, green is an inspiring color-a good gardener or farmer is known to have a “green thumb,” meaning this person creates life and habitats. Green is often synonymous with creation (perfect for writing papers!).

Neutral colors are blacks, tans, grays, and other colors that stay in the background and complement other colors well. A quick look at color theory or the therapeutic effects of certain colors can be a huge help when picking out color schemes.

But you can’t paint your dorm room. My freshman year my side of the room had a greenish theme. I had a green comforter and used that as the centerpiece. Most of my pictures, posters, and other accessories went with the green comforter. Which brings me to the number 2 key idea and the savior of many college dorm roomsâÂ?¦

POSTERS. Posters are great. They convey a person’s personality. Whether they’re pictures of musicians, scenes from movies, copies of famous paintings, or college posters about drinking, they tell people a bit about who you are. Best of all, posters are cheap. Most college campuses sell posters in the bookstore, my school has a huge poster sale at the beginning of fall semester with every size and kind of poster imaginable. I’ve seen people wallpaper their dorm rooms in posters.

Posters get tricky at times. Most dorms will tell students that they cannot use tape to hang items. This is because it messes up the paint in the dorm rooms. The substitute is tacky. I found it sticks best if you wash the wall and allow it to dry first, but with humidity and weight, it never lasted long for me. So I used tape (don’t tell). I hung a flag from my wall using screw-in hooks as well. My secret was a small can of spackle at the end of the year. Spackle is incredibly easy to use and will hide any signs of illegal poster hanging. Simply put some on your finger, rub it over the damaged area, wait for it to dry, and then use sand paper to smooth it out. It blends in with the wall and is easy to paint over. You can buy it at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, A.C. Moore, or any store of that nature.

In the same vein are pictures. Pictures are a great way to keep from getting homesick. I kept pictures of friends and my pets taped up above my bed. After a stressful day, a bad test, or some other inevitable college problem, it’s helpful to look up at pictures of good times and smile.

Carpet. You obviously can’t have wall-to-wall carpeting, but a simple floor rug heats up a tiled floor, adds color, and makes sit-ups easier if you choose to do them. If you want a color scheme a throw rug is the perfect way to tie everything together. You can get solid or prints in any size.

Christmas Lights. I never used them personally, but they made rooms brighter, a bit more fun, and are becoming a staple of the dorm room. Some people opt for a long strand of white lights. Then take that strand and put it up in a design on the wall- a spiral, peace sign, spider web, flower, and I’ve seen a few school logos in Christmas lights.

Other people opt for novelty lights, lights with fun plastic objects attached to them. More popular lights are chili peppers, guitars, certain cartoon characters, and animals. These lights don’t need to be put up in a design, they’re decorative enough.

Just make sure you turn the lights off when you leave on break or during the day so they don’t burn out. One burnt bulb can be the bane of your existence.

I had a friend who tended to get homesick for India. She took fabric and tapestries with Indian prints and hung them down her wall. Using fabric as wallpaper creates an amazing texture and immediately adds a sense of warmth and comfort. She hung pictures and posters off the fabric, some of them were harder to see, but they added a greater sense of warmth to the room and, most importantly, made her feel more at home. I helped her spackle at the end of the year.

Someone on my floor covered their wall in shreds of newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, and things he found around campus. He was very careful to use a lot of color. I loved the texture, look, and color of the walls. He simply ripped up pages and taped them to his wall. It took a while, but was worth it.

The real secret behind a great dorm room is creativity. I tend to decorate around my three C’s: Color, Comfort, and Creativity. Big, cushy chairs are wonderful, as are beanbag chairs. I use a lot of pillows and stuffed animals to decorate on my bed. Find out the dimensions of your room and start planning.

Your dorm room is your home, your office, your club, your sanctuary, and your library. The most important thing is that you feel comfortable and can effectively study in it. Your room tells people who you are before you can even introduce yourself.

Whether you cover your walls with posters, use a rug to establish a color scheme, hang fabric, use Christmas lights, hang paper lanterns, or do something you came up with; a dorm room decorated with imagination is a wonder to behold.