How to Make Your Dorm Feel More Homey

Spruce up your dorm with a little bit of color, imagination and your favorite pieces from home.

In comparison to living at home, dorm life can leave a lot to be desired. When you live in a small space with hardly enough room to do your homework and, on top of that, share the space with at least one roommate, it leaves you jonesing for the days when you lived comfortably at home. However with a little bit of imagination and color, you can upgrade your dorm room from homely to homey in no time.

Things You'll Need

• Family photographs
• Colorful bedding and accessories
• Personal belongings
• Scented sprays

Instructions

1. Get crafty by framing some of your favorite photographs of friends, family and pets, and display them throughout your dorm. Hang them on your walls. Place them on your nightstand and, if you're super sentimental, iron one or two of them onto your pillowcase. Nothing says "home sweet home" like the familiar faces in your life.

2. Splash some color around the room with the help of some awesome accessories. Be bold! For example; if you want to demonstrate your school spirit, buy pillows, curtains, bedding, throw rugs and bath towels in the school's colors. Whatever your color of choice, use it. Dorm rooms are usually pretty drab and cold when it comes to color, so the more color you can throw into the mix, the warmer the room becomes and the more homey it feels.

3. Nothing warms up a room like the right lighting. Rather than purchase your regular, run-of-the-mill white light bulbs, pick up soft pink- or soft blue-tinted bulbs to take the edge off harsh lighting. Next to the colors you choose for your space, good, ambient lighting cozies up the place with a sjimple flip of a switch.

4. Pack up a few of your favorite pieces from home and scatter them around your dorm. One of the easiest ways to make your dorm more homey is to personalize it with a few of your favorite things. Whether it's the ratty old teddy bear you grew up with, the quilt your grandmother made you on your 16th birthday, or the framed artwork given to you by your little brother, its those meaningful mementos that make a livable room into a lovable one.

5. Spritz your space with your favorite scents from home. According to HumanMemory.net, scent is the closet sense linked to memory. So whether it's the smell of your mother's warm apple pie coming from the kitchen or the lilacs growing in your backyard, invest in scented sprays and pillow mists to bring back the memories of home.

References

• Human Memory: Scensory Memory
• G.E. Lighting: Mood Lighting