A picture-perfect dorm room doesn't happen by accident.
And so it's no coincidence that the bright colors of Julie Martin's comforter - sparkling with fluorescent pink, lime, blue, and purple - are echoed in the rug. And the lamp. And the storage bins. And the gumball machine.
"We had like a four-hour conversation," admitted her roommate, Michelle Beer. "We're big on matching."
Ms. Martin, of Sheffield Lake, Ohio, and Ms. Beer, of South Euclid, Ohio, are sophomores at Bowling Green State University.
Their dorm room decor sure beats the dank, dungeonlike dorm rooms that many college students call home. You know, the ones with the bare white cinder block walls, the yellow plastic couch that sticks to your legs, and the giant Bob Marley poster loosely stuck to the back of the door.
In contrast, this BGSU room, a tidy double in the university's Offenhauer Towers, is splashed with color and photographs and personal trinkets. The coeds have simple advice for anyone worried about languishing in a boring college room - whether they've already moved in or, like many students at Ohio State University, will be moving in this weekend.
"We just tried to make it bright and happy," Ms. Beer said.
Given the constraints of the typical college dorm room, that's about the most you can try and do, said Jeff Rumpf, owner of Betty Rumpf Interiors in Toledo.
"I find it quite difficult because the rooms are so small," he said. "Get some color in there. Bring in some personal things, pictures from home. That's about all you can really do."
For those with a more mystical bent, feng shui, the ancient Asian concept that aims to ensure that all inhabitants are in harmony with their surroundings, can offer some other hints for dorm decor.
Dennis Fairchild, author of Healing Homes: Feng Shui - Here & Now who lives in suburban Detroit, suggests displaying some sort of landscape poster or photo at eye level above desks to allow the mind to expand and accept new information.
"If you have a choice, sleep only on the top bunk," he added. "[Feng shui] says it keeps you closer to heaven and nobody's dreams will interfere with yours."
Other tips: Bean bag chairs are good feng shui because they change shape to conform to the sitter, he said, and turn off the overhead fluorescent lights and use only floor and desk lamps to avoid arguments with roomies.
Amy Balata, a University of Toledo sophomore from Brecksville, Ohio, has taken that last one to heart.
"We never use those," she said, pointing to the overhead lights in her Academic House dorm room. "It's too bright, not homey. It's like a jail cell."
Instead, she recommends a cool, five-bulb floor lamp to illumine the walls covered in posters of famous paintings and a plaid couch that dominates the room. It's an old green thing with a pull-out sleeper that she found at a thrift store.
"It doesn't smell too bad and it fits two people perfectly," she said. "And it doesn't match, thus making it the perfect college [couch]."
Downstairs in the same residence hall, Emily Lyell, a freshman from Stow, Ohio, has a blinking rope light around the window to add some color. There's a dart board, posters of Jack Nicholson in The Shining and Vin Diesel that must be four feet tall, and two - count 'em two - mini-fridges.
But what's missing that would be really cool? A 20-gallon fish tank, she said.
For guys, the rules are a little different - less fluorescent orange in the blankets and throw pillows, for one thing.
"Guys like blander designs. We don't need to be so colorful in bedding," said Brandon Drake, a junior from Wisconsin living in BGSU's Offenhauer Towers.
True to his word, one of the bright-
est items in Mr. Drake's room is the blue mattress peeking out from under his sheets.
His strategy has been to use his room as a bulletin board to communicate with others.
"It's a story to tell," he said.
It's effective too, making it easy to pick up that he's a sports nut and College Republican without saying a word. His decorations do all the talking. There are signs devoted to the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Cubs, and a row of neatly arranged ball caps on top of a closet. A Bush/Cheney sign adorns the door and a red "Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Democrat" T-shirt is on one wall.
The layout is intentionally functional too, with the television - essential for watching weekend football games and playing video games like NCAA Football 2005 ("a college classic," Mr. Drake said) - as the central focus.
It couldn't be more different from Lindsay Freeman's room in UT's McComas Village. For one, her room in the Chi Omega sorority house is really, really pink.
"Everyone thinks we're crazy," the senior from Clyde said, adding that others who wander into the room often ask, "So do we all have to be wearing pink to come in?"
It's not an outrageous question. There's a wall that's been painted pink and shades of the color appear in the candles, rug, table, and lights.
There's a personal touch too. The three roommates made green curtains for the windows and the walls are plastered with personal photographs and black-and-white pictures of movie stars like Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe.
"All the other rooms kind of are the same, and we didn't want to be the same," Ms. Freeman said. "There are only so many ways to rearrange the furniture."
All of this makes it a little more like home. Or, in Ms. Freeman's case, better than home.
"At home," she said, "my parents got rid of my room, so I sleep in the guest room."
Contact Ryan E. Smith at:
ryansmith@theblade.com
or 419-724-6103.
First Published September 15, 2004, 9:57 a.m.
