Fearless about dating myself, I ask for one small opportunity to reminisce. The year: 1978. The place: Urbana, Ill., and in particular Allen Hall, the counterculture, coed dorm at the University of Illinois.
I didn’t live there. I had just moved all of my worldly belongings into the conservative all-girls’ dorm attached to Allen. When worlds collide, I thought.
And they did–nightly, in my case. The one and only snack bar in the whole two-dorm complex was on the Allen Hall side, and the fastest way there was through a sensory odyssey known as Ground South, the ground-floor south wing of Allen.
It was where the wild boys lived. Where hall lights were refitted with red bulbs. Where doors were swept off their hinges and replaced with strings of beads. Where beds were hoisted into lofts. Where stereo speakers dangled from here, there and everywhere. Where walls and ceilings were papered with posters of Bruce Springsteen, Jethro Tull and Mick Jagger in full tongue. Where “fireplaces” (to make out by) were fashioned out of cardboard logs and trick lighting.
Yes, the wild boys could decorate. The 12-by-15-foot space known as the standard dorm room was their pride and passion.
And so, we celebrate the start of another year of college life with a challenge to the Class of 2004. We snagged two incoming freshmen, put $250 in each of their pockets and told them to do it up. Decorate your dorm room, we said. And let’s see what kind of odyssey you come up with.
We sent Nick Shields of Chicago to a Target store and Juli Chikaraishi of Glenview to IKEA Chicago in Schaumburg.
The givens: two beds, two dressers, two desks, never enough space. Their chosen university would supply all of that.
Their assignment: Shop for decorative and storage elements–rugs, bedspreads, throw pillows, easy chairs, lamps, CD racks, picture frames, etc. Stay away from necessities such as sheets and towels. And shop only the one store to which they were assigned. (We liked the idea of one-stop shopping, as time is running out for many collegians.)
And then we put it all together and photographed them in a Kemper Hall dorm room “lent” to us by Northwestern University in Evanston.
ON TARGET WITH: NICK SHIELDS, 17, of Chicago and soon . . . the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Train your eye on the little cube on the little black chair. Nick doled out nearly one-third of his budget on “one cool thing”–a cube-shaped CD clock-radio that will wake him up in the morning and be his main sound machine.
He spent the rest on practical decoration–a good beige blanket/bedspread; a good fan; a good rug (“It’s going to get cold”); a good halogen reading lamp (“I felt I needed at least one good light”); a couple of good drinking mugs; a good-looking CD holder; and, yes, an average everyday iron and ironing board.
The press thing is on his mind, in more than one sense of the word. Nick wants to be a journalist, “maybe a sports broadcaster.” He got a good start this summer as an intern in the KidNews section of this newspaper and scored a one-on-one interview with White Sox slugger Frank Thomas.
Nickknacks: Loves family, basketball, God and bread.
Dreams of: Being in a movie someday.
Nervous about: The roommate thing. “I’m an only child. I’m used to being by myself. So adjusting to having someone in my room with me will be a new experience.”
IKEA DEALS FROM: JULI CHIKARAISHI, 18, of Glenview and soon . . . the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
“I wanted to get something my roommate wouldn’t have a fit with,” says Juli, referring to her punchy but understated color scheme of blue, black, silver, gray and white. The second-born in a set of quintuplets with an older sister as well, Juli knows a thing or two about compromise and negotiation. At home, she shares a room and a wardrobe with fellow quint Jami.
Since they aren’t going to the same college, they must divide the spoils. Any day now. But not the shoes. Never the shoes. Juli, who went mostly shoeless this summer as a lifeguard at a day camp, counts 26 pairs of funky footwear to herself–and made sure she bought herself a sturdy rack to house them.
Her aspirations: She wants to be a science researcher “probably in the biology field.”
Favorite purchase: The sleek, slipcovered easy chair in black. “I wanted a great chair. I wanted to get a blowup chair, but thought I wouldn’t use it after maybe my second year or so. This chair will go even in my first apartment.”
Loves: Softball, friends and family (thus the two picture frames she bought), clothes, shoes, pasta.
Will miss: “My house and everything I’m used to–a routine, the noises at home.”
The big squeeze
How do you make the standard dorm room–all 12 by 15 square feet of it, if you’re lucky–live bigger than that? Kirby Anderson, a sales trainer and salesman at The Container Store, and Amy Susskind, a spokeswoman for Bed Bath & Beyond, shared some ideas:
– To start, don’t take everything you own. Be selective about clothes. And if possible, leave off-season stuff behind and fetch it later on a trip home.
– Pack your belongings in something you can use for storage once you arrive–a storage trunk (which also doubles as a coffee table while holding your boots, bulky sweaters, extra blankets), milk crates, folding crates.
– Hang grids, racks, bulletin boards liberally from walls with no fear of wrecking the plaster or drywall, thanks to 3M’s Command adhesive hooks, clips and sticky strips. Introduced a few years ago, Command adhesives are great for dorm rooms because they are designed to come clean with no damage.
– Maximize closet space with a few inexpensive organizational products: an over-the-door shoe rack; tiered hangers (for shirts/blouses, pants, skirts); stacking boxes or shelves to get extra levels out of the closet floor and shelf; a rod doubler that gives you double-hang closet space ideal for folded pants and shirts/blouses. The Container Store sells a 30-inch-wide doubler ($15) made expressly for dorm rooms.
– Make use of every last square inch of your under-bed space. Get some easy-slide under-the-bed boxes. And to get even more boxes or taller boxes under there, prop up the bed’s leg posts on cinder blocks.
– Think of your bed as another place to study. Outfit it properly with a backrest, a lap desk, a clip-on lamp and a kitchen timer, if you are prone to dozing off.
– Put your mini-refrigerator on a storage cart that holds edibles and tableware.
TIPS FROM REAL EXPERTS
We asked a bunch of college students who are already living the dorm life to give us a quick list of easily forgotten items–and things that are better left behind.
Don’t forget
– Cleaning supplies such as glass-cleaning products and paper towels
– Extension cords. A power strip that accepts three-prong plugs (“There aren’t enough outlets for two people” and lots of things, including computers, use the three-prong approach).
– T-shirt sheets (“They’re a jersey knit. They feel like an old T-shirt, really soft. Everybody’s got them”).
– Extra-long twin sheets
– Message board for the outside of your door
– Egg-crate foam mattress pad
– Posters
– Photos of family and friends and anything personal, maybe artwork a family or friend made for you, anything to remind you of home
– A laptop (“If your roommate has parties in the room, you can bring your laptop to the library”)
– An antenna for your TV, should you have cable at home and have disconnected the antenna that came with the TV
– A cozy rug, while Mom and Dad are still buying (“A room-size rug can cost $150!”)
– Extra printing paper and ink, while Mom and Dad are still buying
– Full-length mirror
– Shower shoes. Bathrobe. Shower basket.
– Good winter boots; hiking boots; winter hat, scarf and gloves; and heavy-duty winter jacket (“You have to walk everywhere”)
– One nice business suit and shoes
– Tape, tacks, putty, sticky stuff
– Big window fan or small fan
– Camera. Journal. Bible
– Hot pot. Brita (“The water is just not drinkable”).
– At least one bowl, plate, cup, glass and mug and a set of utensils
– Thermos for taking coffee or soup to class
– Medicine. Band-Aids
– Personal handheld stereo, (“If you go to the gym, if your roommate is sleeping and you want to listen to music”)
– Small portable stereo
– Ironing board and iron
– Strands of Christmas lights (“Tons of people hang them up around the room”)
– Bike or in-line skates
– Bookends
– Alarm clock with snooze
Don’t bother
– High school notes, books.
– Books in general except for a couple of favorites.
– Evening gowns. Excess clothes. Excess shoes.
– Hammer and nails (“You’re not allowed. You’ll ruin the walls”).
– Stuffed animals, figurines
