There’s nothing like decorating your first dorm room to help you figure out who you are. Here’s why “designer dorm rooms” need to stop being a trend.
I went to university in the fall of 2001. Cell phones weren’t a thing yet (but ICQ was, and MSN Messenger was right around the corner). Amazon didn’t exist, so you couldn’t get everything under the sun delivered right to your door. Department stores were still around, and there was still a relatively healthy catalogue business—which is where I fell in love with a turquoise, yellow and lime green plaid bed-in-a-bag. I just had to have it for my dorm room at the University of Windsor.
My mom happily obliged, and I was downright giddy the day it arrived at Sears (obviously the store had called our household landline to say my order was ready, and we’d driven out to the mall to get it from the in-store pick-up desk, as you did in the early aughts). It was everything I’d hoped for, and it became the inspiration for all the supplies I needed to go away to school.
Building My Perfect Room
I bought sewing tape in matching colours to create a collage of pictures on my bulletin board. My bathroom caddy and matching loofah were the perfect shade of turquoise. My mom found me storage baskets and a little rug in the exact colours of my bedspread. I even got a see-through lime green cordless phone and a string of turquoise butterfly fairy lights. I was ready. And beyond excited.
The First Space That Felt Like Me
When I got to school and set everything up, I couldn’t have been happier. And as the year went by, I added more personality: a black-and-white poster of The Breakfast Club from the school’s poster sale, ticket stubs from Detroit Tigers games and concerts, and other mementos from school events adorned my bulletin board. Pictures of friends old and new were printed and tacked around my room.
In hindsight, it perfectly captured an important stage of my life, and I still think about how that was the first time any space really felt like a true reflection of me.
Enter the “Designer Dorm Rooms” Trend
So imagine my dismay when I came across the current trend of “dorm room designers”—which is exactly as it sounds. Freshmen and their parents are hiring interior designers to curate dorm rooms, to the tune of $3000 to $10,000. That means decorating a residence room, in some cases, costs more than tuition. I’m usually a “live and let live” kind of parent, but Come. On.
But money aside, there’s more to it than that. When a professional takes on dorm room décor, it robs kids of what was truly a formative experience for me. I didn’t recognize it then, but that first dorm room (which was no bigger than a shoe box, by the way) helped me to figure out who I was, what I liked and how I wanted my environment to feel.
My house is still many shades of turquoise (I ditched the yellow and lime green), I still love soft fairy light-esque lighting and there are tons of pictures of my friends and family around—but my taste has evolved to be more grown-up and polished. I wouldn’t know how to create a space I loved without that first dorm room.
The Value of Making It Yours
Here’s the other thing: When someone else does the work of setting up the space, kids can forget the effort that went into it. When that happens, it’s easier to disrespect it and slide into leaving things messy and uncared for. I loved that room, and I wanted to make sure I took care of it.
I see that already with my own kids, who are 13 and 10. When they build or create something on their own, they are way more likely to look after that item or space. It’s human nature to protect what’s yours. So let kids make their dorm rooms theirs. Will it be Pinterest perfect? God, I hope not. Because then they won’t be able to look back and remember just how the 2025 equivalent of my plaid bedspread made them feel, and how to recreate that feeling in every home hereafter.
