Last December, my boyfriend and I drove with our dogs to Buffalo to celebrate Christmas with my family. We only planned to stay through the 26th, but Buffalo being Buffalo, there was a massive snowstorm, and we found ourselves stranded in the Queen City for a few extra days. My boyfriend and I were both…
If you love to cook or bake, living in a dorm can be quite the buzzkill. In addition to having to tolerate hard linoleum floors, cinderblock walls, bad lighting and psychotic roommates, the dearth of proper kitchen equipment can make dorm life that much more difficult. In an attempt to curb fires, many dorms have…
If you’re living in a dorm, you’re likely familiar with the long lists of rules that RAs hand out at the beginning of the school year. Rules that forbid things like thumbtacks, toasters, hotplates and candles. While you might mourn the loss of toast in the morning or the ability to cook whenever you please,…
As a college student, there are a lot of good reasons to buy a beanbag chair. They’re lightweight, they’re portable, they’re inexpensive, they’re somewhat comfortable, and they’re kind of fun. Let’s be real though— they are not cute. You might search high and low, but rest assured, it’s practically impossible to find an attractive beanbag…
If you’re a college student, you probably have a printer. You also probably have sheets or a duvet cover. You might, however, not be happy with either one. Printers can be clunky, oversized wastes of space while dorm bedding can leave a lot to be desired in the design department. Why not, then, turn dorm…
When I moved into my dorm room for my freshman year of college, the first thing I did was unpack a gigantic envelope filled with magazine clippings. I had spent the entire summer going through various fashion magazines, cutting out pages with an X-Acto knife and saving them so that in the near future, I…
If you’re living in dorms (or have ever been a teenager, for that matter), you’ve likely come across wall hangings. I’m sure you know the type — sold at the local head shop and printed with any number of psychedelic images such as kaleidoscopic patterns, tie-dye, dancing wolves and moonlit dolphins. Wall hangings, with their…
Illustration by David Saracino. College can be pretty exhausting. After attending classes, studying, working and socializing, sometimes all you want are the comforts of home — a quiet evening in a space that feels like your own. Unfortunately, dorms are not exactly the most welcoming or homey of places. In fact, with unfriendly security guards,…
When I was an undergrad in college, I often found myself wishing that design blogs and magazines had decorating tips for my particular lifestyle. That lifestyle being living with no money in a veritable shoe box with poor air conditioning, loud neighbors, communal bathrooms and a suspicious smell. Although I perused various design websites on…
