Picture this: you walk into a dorm room and immediately see a giant “Walking Dead” poster on the cinderblock wall right above a bed covered with a purple chevron bedspread and monogrammed pillows. Does that seem like an odd juxtaposition?
What about a room with several hand-crafted, water-color canvases (I really wish the plural of canvas was canvi…), a desk littered with snow globes from vacations long past, and a miniature figurine of Bilbo Baggins?
I love visiting my friends’ rooms on campus because it allows me to get an even better picture of who they are as a person. When we move away to college, we do bring a lot of our high school selves with us. I for sure had plenty of pictures of friends from my “glory days” on my desk along with a T-shirt blanket composed of my Drama Club and student choir shirts.
As my years at Christopher Newport passed, however, I started growing into a new style of decorating. I realized I didn’t like having walls plastered in pictures and posters (no matter what society tried to sell as the typical college dorm); I wanted clean space on the walls so my mind would feel less cluttered when I studied late at night in my room.
I also decided it’s OK to have a few general colors present in my room, but it’s also all right to not have everything perfectly matchy-matchy – that’s just too much work, let’s be real.
It’s OK to use my room as a place to express all of who I am. That’s why there’s delicate, hand-lettered canvi with lyrics from a One Direction song, a map of the U.S. tracing all the states I’ve lived in, and two GIANT “Lord of the Rings” posters. I still have a few pictures of my high school friends, but I’ve added snapshots of memories with my college roommates.
Make your room your own while you’re here. Decorate it as much or as little as you want. Hang up those twinkly lights and that Aerosmith poster.
This is college, after all.
When your English major consumes your room decor.
