Beyond Posters: Creative Dorm Room Decoration Ideas

Many college freshmen completely forget about decorating their dorm room while they are doing college shopping, focusing instead on the essentials like bedding and storage. Then they arrive, set up their rooms, and discover that they are bare and need some decorating help. Many colleges have poster fairs to help solve that problem, but decorating a dorm room can be much more exciting than slapping a couple posters on the wall.

Dorm Room Decoration Idea: Cloth on the Walls

Although colleges don't let students paint the walls in their dorm rooms, they often will provide a bulletin board strip along the top of the wall that can let you pin whatever you want into the wall. One idea is to pin large pieces of lightweight fabric to the wall, making your own "paint" job that will add so much color and life to the room.

Ideas can range anywhere from covering all the walls in one bold color, to doing one color on each wall, or combining colors within a wall. Fun patterns can be made by using strips of cloth in alternating colors, or by putting smaller pieces of cloth on top of the big one.

Dorm Room Decoration Idea: Plants

In addition to adding some green and life to a dorm room, plants will also help to keep the air fresh by recycling that carbon dioxide into more oxygen. Of course, students will have to make sure that they get enough light, and they will have to be attentive to water them when they need it, but plants usually require less care than fish. They are also slightly easier to keep alive during long weekends away or spring break, although they will need plant-sitters for longer breaks.

Dorm Room Decoration Idea: Full-Wall Bulletin Board

For the artsy student who enjoys making wall collages of all sorts of miscellaneous items and won't be able to survive with the tiny bulletin boards provided (if any), a full-wall bulletin board can be a great decorating scheme. Simply purchase a large bulletin board or corkboard and attach it to the wall. Then pin away, making sure that the pins aren't poking through onto the wall (if you were allowed to make lots of holes, you wouldn't even need the bulletin board in the first place).

A couple more detailed ideas for full-wall bulletin boards designed especially for displaying photos can be found in this article.

Dorm Room Decoration Idea: Pillows and Comfort

To turn a sterile college dorm room into a cozy nook for studying and just hanging out, investigate purchasing some comfortable seating. Although a couch can be nice, they just won't fit into many first-year dorm rooms, so other seating such as beanbags, bowl chairs, and cushions and pillows on the floor will be a nice alternative. Any friends coming into the room will notice the comfortable seating and want to just flop down onto it, and it will make the space feel much warmer and more inviting. Plus, pillows and smaller cushions are very mobile, making it easy for large groups to gather in the room to watch a movie or play a game.