According to the Housing and Dining section of the university website, 80% of students live in dorms through to their senior year. So, with the breaking in of the Fall 2025 semester, incoming freshmen are preparing for their first taste of dorm life. They might especially like some dorm room related advice from their upperclassmen peers. But how much nuance is there to dorm décor, and is the HGTV interior design of dreams worth it?
While having siblings is not an uncommon experience, not everyone gets it, and even some of those that do do not know what it means to share the same room. Indeed, having a roommate for many is bound to be a new experience, and can be one of the biggest boons, or biggest obstacles in shaping your shared living space. Aidan Olsen ’28, said he was happy with the roommate he got, and that it made the move-in process a lot easier.
“I was very lucky to have Peter as my roommate. We get along phenomenally, and he’s very easy to live with. We basically decided as far as decorations and stuff go, we’ll just split the room half and half. My decorations go on my side, his decorations go on his side,” Olsen said.
But once roommates demarcate where they can decorate, what should fill that space? Campus dorm rooms provide the bare essentials of furnishing, objects like dressers, desks, closets, chairs, and beds. Students can take into consideration where and how they want these furnishings arranged. For this, there are plenty of useful room planning sites incoming students can make use of before coming to campus. These include Coohom, Room Planner, and Roomie. The latter is particularly useful in that it can connect to a selection of university room presets, including Loyola.
Outside of provided furnishings, however, there are many surfaces waiting for shapes and color. Spots like window sills or tops of dressers can be great for small potted plants or stereo speakers. Glow-in-the-dark star stickers can be great for walls or ceilings if students are daring enough. Peter French ’28, Olsen’s roommate, thought posters were a great way to add character to a dorm room.
“Posters really liven up a room. It’s better than just blank walls. Anything like that to throw on the wall really livens up the space,” French said.
Olsen and French’s spring dorm room is all but a temple to posters and illustrations, including Olsen’s large Radiohead poster, which according to French, visitors have expressed envy for.
Room design is an iterative process. Ask any parent. As such, do not be afraid to take cues from friends’ and acquaintances’ dorms. Besides, the pervasive trend of colored LED lights had to come from some focal point. Some students fly flags in their windows or upon their wall to represent respective family history. Others make window sticky note art visible from outside or display cardboard cutouts. One of the best ideas French claimed to observe in a room, was not meant as a visual beauty, but an olfactory one.
“One of the nicest rooms I went into was a friend’s room, and they had incense that they were burning, and it just made the room smell a lot more pleasant, compared to a room where it smells like food. Next year I’m definitely getting some incense, air freshener, something like that,” French said.
Other clever non-visual contributions to a dorm room may include wireless doorbells, whose chimes can give fellow students a fun first impression before stepping into the room, or entryway snack baskets to grab quick bites before stepping out to the next class.
It is important not to get carried away when decorating, however. Residence life has a good handful of policies when it comes to room furnishings and decorations meant both to make the transitional living experience smoother and also ensure a safe experience. Sawyer Little ’27, is an RA for Campion Tower, and believes that some of the air of strictness around RAs and inspection rules is overstated.
“I feel as if the rules are fairly understandable and not too restrictive. People have gotten a bit creative on ways to hang things on walls. Some people have been willing to just pay the fine if you want to nail things to the wall. I did do that my first semester here,” Little said.
Boarding students may feel strongly about hauling their whole childhood room off to college with them, but just as the school’s Cura Personalis will grow their person, Baltimore will surely grow their belongings. Little says he bases his room in simplicity, and with expectation that he will pick up more than he came to campus with.
“I would just recommend when decorating your room, less is typically more and I do implore you try thrifting. There’s lots of vintage stores. There’s lots of good options in the area,” Little said.
Olsen expressed a similar sentiment.
“Throughout the year I buy little trinkets or clothes, new clothes but most of the stuff in my dorm is stuff from home,” Olsen said.
According to Sawyer, ideal locations to shop for vintage goods include Towson’s Savers and downtown’s Value Village. Smaller stores can also be found within casual walking distance of campus, including Wyndhurst Station’s Elevated Retro.
College is the first taste of independent living that many students will get, so it is important to cherish it. While dorm residence isn’t likely to make up the most of college memories, that doesn’t make it an area to ignore. So take in the advice of friends, peers, and upperclassmen when constructing a pretty but packable room-to-go.
