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Ideas and tips to help decorate the dorm room.

Decorating the dorm room isn't all that different from decorating a teen's room, except for the one or more room mates, everybody's stuff and that you do a little meal prep in there too! Talk about being confined to quarters! Or should I say, confining quarters?

Going off to college is an adventure and often your first chance to be sort of independent. You'll need space to sleep, to study and to bath and dress. (Check out the fold up bed and desk set on the left.)

Think multipurpose when looking at furniture or storage items. Make areas dual duty. If your room mate is cool with it, you can set up a corner of the room for desks and study, but also for entertaining, where friends can sit when they come over. If you can share a space it will help a lot.

Heaven forbid you are miss neat and tidy, and you get stuck with a free spirit who throws organization to the wind, OR vice versa! This is where teenagers start learning about dealing with other people besides their family that loves them dearly, and other people's personalities.

Everyone has their 'stuff'. Their music, phone, friends, clothes, books, computer, food stash, shoes everywhere and all that beauty paraphernalia! You are definitely going to need some Storage and Organization (All kinds of storage solutions. Over the door, on the wall, on the floor, under the bed, you name it)! But the very first thing, which you should have done as soon as you were accepted at the college of your choice and decided to live in the dormitory, is check out the rules and regulations as to what you can and can't do and what they provide for you in your room.

Making More Room

Dormitories are usually pretty limited on floor space, so you don't have any choice but to get off the floor and go up the walls, and layer to organize all the college stuff!

If you're not allowed to put any holes in the wall, use command hooks. You can get 'em most places like Walmart, Kmart etc. including hardware stores.

They are great for hanging memo boards, mirrors and other wall hangings and organizer bags for jewelry, makeup, shoes or whatever.

Hang organizer bags on the wall, over the back of your door and closet door, over the bathroom door too if you have one in your dorm room. And don't forget to hang them on the end and or sides of the bunk bed if you have one.

If you don't have your own bathroom, keep all your toiletries in a handy bag that you can take with you and hang up on a towel bar or door knob while you're in the bathroom getting ready.

If you have room under the bed, use under bed boxes for things like shoes and small items that'll fit under there.

Hang a curtain rod from a couple command hooks (pay attention to how much weight the hooks will hold) and use to hang things on.

Get a shower curtain that has pockets in it too!

Mark Your Territory

Put your name on things as you bring them into the dorm that you don't want to walk off so there's no fighting over who it belongs too. You can define your own area with an area rug too. If you get a chance to talk to your future room mate before you shop, you can color coordinate all your things. One for you and another color for her/him.

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