Dorm, Sweet, Dorm: Where Designer Touches Make the Grade

Back in the day, going to JCPenney with a roommate to get a matching comforter for a dorm room was really something. Yes, there might have been a color scheme — school colors, maybe blue and yellow or pink and white — to class up the place. Anyone feeling particularly edgy could add a poster and a lamp to what was considered a designer touch to beige cinderblock walls.

Fast forward from the generation that walked a mile in the snow, did homework on a Remington Underwood typewriter, and took phone calls on Sundays on the phone down the hall to the new millennium. The Class of 2029, who entered college this fall semester, did not go to college to rough it.

They have vastly different expectations, raising the dorm décor bar higher than the drama over who gets the top bunk in a three-girl room. This fall, a good chunk of college students moved into their dorm rooms equipped not only with a laptop, but with curated dorm rooms.

Forget top bunk drama, today’s students have watched their fair share of HGTV, some have hired designers, and others hope their Instagram shots of their dorm room will go viral. The comforter? Oh, please. That’s the bare minimum.

Major Decisions

Pinterest boards, paint chips, and neon lights are part of what goes into a room the size of a one-car garage. Where’s the natural light, and where’s the rug to be placed are decisions on the level of choosing a major.

A headboard started it for Katie Kostell, a first-year student at Texas Christian University. The graduate of Ursaline Academy of Dallas found a headboard — I think ours were built into the wall, right? — in a Ballard Designs Furniture Stores and Home Decor catalogue, and that pointed the way for the rest of her room. She found it in one of the “literally hundreds” of decoration catalogues borrowed from her mother, Suzanne Kostell, a TCU alum with an interior design career.

“I picked out the headboard months before I went to college, and that was It,” the freshman said. “Everything matched, and it was all a big thing.”

So bright and blue it was for her room in P.E. Clark dorm that comes with free laundry and a baking kitchen. The rug, curtains, hanging lamp, bedding and custom-made pillows have made it a room this Kappa Alpha Theta pledge is proud to call hers.

“We put the most effort into the bedding,” she said. “I ended up really liking it.”

Big Bu$ine$$

All this energy going into dorm design has become a niche business for designers and retailers, too. It’s a full-blown industry of style and storage.

A part of the Williams-Sonoma brands is Dormify, where such “essentials” as lighted vanity mirrors and damask hangers, plus the more normal gear like duvet covers and shoe racks can be picked up at a Pottery Barn near a campus. Convenient, right? Then Dorm Love, known for affordable prices with “designer style,” is another business catering to the college crowd. Just in case a freshman comes to school without an idea of how to decorate their new home away from home, there are online mood boards for both her and him.

The options for dorm decorating are as overwhelming as choosing a major, but the consequences of choosing poorly are likely much less serious. All this studying in style? If only GPA came with so much professional assistance.

Dorm décor decisions can feel as daunting as picking a major, but thankfully, the stakes are lower. A color scheme flop isn’t nearly as important as a major without job options. A student has to wonder, though. With all this emphasis on studying, why doesn’t a GPA come with a design consultant?