Top tips for decorating your uni room and making it feel like a home away from home

When you arrive in September to the room that will be your home for your first year of university, the blank white walls and emptiness can feel daunting, but never fear – here’s some tips on how to make your uni room cosy and cool, and some wonky photos of my second-year room.

 

Decorate those walls
Make those blank walls feel, well, less blank, with some posters, postcards, wall art, and your own doodles if you’re artistically inclined, or some of your favourite quotations.

There’s a great poster sale held around November by the aptly-named ‘Uni Poster Sales’ outside of LSE Student Union, next to our Virginia Woolf Building at Strand Campus. I would definitely recommend a visit for seriously decently-priced posters, ranging from famous artworks to cool wall art and lots of cult classics. You could also hang up a flag, a chic wall tapestry, and of course, photos! Services like Snapfish are really useful for cheaply printing your favourite memories.

 

Check your accommodation rules
Here’s what King’s says: “Leave at home anything involving a naked flame, such as candles, hookah pipes, incense burners, fairy lights and barbecues”. They also do not like to see blue tack being used on painted walls, since it leaves a mark and can strip the paint. However that won’t limit your decorating options!

Concerning candles, you could opt for an electrical one or a light-up humidifier for the same vibe, or diffusers for the scent.

With the fairy lights, from my own experience at least, it seems that while plug-in lights are definitely not allowed, having battery-operated ones was not flagged up during room inspections. So, check with your halls.

 

How to hang it all up
Here, Command comes to the rescue. This brand sells adhesive strips and hooks of all different sizes: these are strong and do not leave marks provided that you remove them carefully. Using washi tape is another method which can add some colour to your room while securing your photos and posters.

Rooms usually include a notice board, so make sure to bring some pins, while blue tack and white tack can still be used on non-painted surfaces.

 

Memories of home

The simplest way to make your uni room feel like home is to bring some of home with you.

I brought a few of my favourite books, some ornaments, random mementos and souvenirs – they definitely made my room feel cosier and started some funny and interesting conversations. I also brought a Pikachu teddy.

 

If you’re still struggling for ideas…

In summary, here’s a quickfire list of items which you could use to personalise your room:

• Bedding! It’s a part of your decor, not just what you sleep in.
• Folders, files – they can decorate as well as organise.
• Fairy lights, or mood lights.
• Bunting
• Cheap and colourful frames – Ikea!
• A rug – for that comfortable feel
• A plant – greenery is good for the soul, though admittedly, I overwatered mine and killed it last year: fake plants are ok too.

 

Storage bonus: Don’t clutter up all of your space – organise

With all this decorating, you could easily forget that you do, in fact, need space to study in. Do not over-clutter your desk for the sake of aesthetic. So, in order to keep your room cool and clutter-free, it may be time to invest in some additional storage to organise your things – this is essential in London uni rooms since it’s likely that you’ll have less space than at home.

For example, you can easily get some affordable trunks/boxes from stores such TK Maxx or Argos. Hanging shelves and shoe racks are another good measure for saving space if you’re planning on hauling the majority of your wardrobe to your new room.

Overall, it’s always a good idea to put your personality into your room decor. After all, it’s one of the first things that new people will have to see when they meet you and are getting to know you.

Hopefully these tips will be useful for when the time comes for you to move in to your very own uni room.