Paper Doll & Real Simple Organize Dorm Rooms: SUPER-EXTENDED Edition
This post originally appeared in September of 2018. The links and prices have been updated as of July 2024.
Happy new school year!
I am very excited to have been interviewed again by Real Simple Magazine, this time about How To Make the Most of a Dorm Room, According to a Professional Organizer. (If you get the print copy, it’s page 52.)
Longtime readers of the blog know that everything I need to say on any given topic can’t be contained on one page of a magazine, so I’d love to share the rest of my advice with you today.
Whether you are a student or you just dropped yours off at college last week, dorms (and other small living spaces) offer an opportunity to minimize without being altogether minimalistic, to be practical without giving up style. And be assured that it’s not too late, parents. Your college kids will be home for Fall Break or Thanksgiving, giving you the opportunity to surprise them with room improvement assistance.
Thirty-three years (and a few days ago), Paper Doll was a college freshman, far above Cayuga’s waters. For most of my life, I had a bedroom and a bathroom to myself, and (long before my professional organizing days), an entire house as an extension of my “space” to keep my stuff. Having a roommate, and sharing a bathroom with five other young women, all in a space smaller than what I’d previously had to myself was an education!
A dorm room has to serve as a study lounge, sleeping area, kitchenette, exercise room, and more, but space is at a premium. Keep surfaces clear and the clutter at bay with these organizing essentials.
MAXIMIZE VERTICAL SPACE
Declutter doom room floors and desktops by maximizing underused vertical surfaces. You can create DIY organization with corkboards, available by the board, tile, or roll.
Pegboards are another do-it-yourself option, especially if you can’t use adhesive on your walls. Hang colorful pegboards from the ceiling, flush against the wall, and then add the hardware – hooks, baskets, and even small bulletin boards.
For students who want to upgrade (or who have no visual artistic talent, like Paper Doll), the attractive and sturdy Copper Wire Wall Grid uses re-positionable hooks, shelves, and baskets.
[Editor’s Note: Since this post was published in 2018, The Container Store stopped carrying this product. You can find a similar grid and accessories at Amazon.)
The same amazing 3M Command-brand hooks that help you keep track of keys and jackets at your house can do wonders in dorm rooms and bathrooms. Attach Command hooks, strips, and decorator clips to walls and doors to hang coats and clothing, hair dryers and jewelry, headphones, photos and tapestries without fear of damage to paint or finishes. (Command.com)
When you need more than desk space for your brilliant ideas, repositionable whiteboard sheets stick to the wall with static and let you write or draw. Snap a photo and send it to Evernote to preserve your brilliance, and then erase when it’s time to move to the next problem set. (White or clear from WizardWall.com or Amazon, from $42.)
REVEAL HIDDEN STORAGE
These sturdy bed risers with outlets and USB chargers let you reveal the possibilities of under-bed storage, from nylon duffel bags for corralling bedding and towels to storage tubs for off-season clothes. (Available at Amazon, and most big box stores, usually around $40.) The risers come in a variety of styles, but none are what you’d call fashion-forward, so also consider a long bed-skirt if you want to keep your bed high and at the height of fashion.
OVER-THE-DOOR ISN’T JUST FOR SHOES ANYMORE
Over-the-door shoe organizers keep your kicks (that’s apparently what they call sneakers these days!) from crowding a tiny dorm wardrobe’s floor, but the concept works for everything from hair care products to cleaning supplies to lingerie.
For those with suite-style bathrooms, swap your shower caddy for a hanging mesh shower pocket organizer to keep toiletries handy. (Amazon or CampingWorld.com, about $8-$11)
FOCUS ON PRIME REAL ESTATE
When there’s no room for a bedside table, keep everything you use (or should use) close at hand. Store your phone, tablet, glasses, tissues, highlighters, and spare notebooks in the unused space hugging your bed with any of a wide variety of bedside storage caddies. Check Wayfair for this colorful option, or Amazon for longer options, like the Whitmor Bedskirt Organizer, both around $20.
Don’t waste the space on the top of your mini-fridge. Let a Mini Fridge Caddy for about $19) hug your fridge to give you space for dishes and cutlery, and use that prime real estate for a milk crate storage box (Walmart) with hanging file rails to store papers or use as a snack pantry. (You might be able to create your own version; Paper Mommy and I were more inclined to shop than sew.)
MAKE (THE MOST OF) YOUR BED
Keeping the peace means never having to worry about roommates keeping you awake. Zip up into a private room within a room to shade light and muffle sound with the Privacy Pop-up Bed Tent, usually under $100.
GROUP LIKE WITH LIKE
Don’t let your limited desk drawer space turn to chaos. Small spice bottles corral push pins, staples, rubber bands, alligator clips and other small supplies. Pop them on a Lazy Susan with a tall mug in the center for pens, highlighters, and scissors, you have a supply station.
MAKE CLOSETS DO DOUBLE-DUTY
Most dorm closets having nothing but an inconveniently high shelf and one hanging rod. Do double-duty by hanging a second rod (Room Essentials Adjustable Closet Rod Extender), a 6-compartment vertical sweater organizer and a valet rod for putting together outfits. Attach your valet rod well above eye level. Don’t ask me how I know.)
STAY TIDY & CHARGED UP
With so many electronic devices to keep track of, you and your friends will need to stay charged up. Pick a flexible power strip surge protector that can curve around the leg of a bed or desk like the Quirky Pivot Power Genius Power Strip at Amazon for about $18.
or one with rotating outlets and USB ports to accommodate larger plugs and adapters, like the Power Curve (Amazon, about $49).
Create a work hub/charging station with a wall-mounted option like Belkin’s USB Outlet Extender with a phone cradle. (Container Store, $30)
Make sure your unplugged lightning cables and cords never fall to the floor or snake behind the desk again with the MOS Magnetic Organizing System for cables.
If you aren’t familiar with MOS, definitely check out this classic Paper Doll blog post for one of my favorite cord control solutions.
SHELVE INSTEAD OF PILE
Dorm rooms usually lack shelving, leaving it hard to group similar items to keep them organized. Stacked milk crates are easy to break down at year’s end, but can be wobbly, and bookshelves can be hard to put together or move and impossible to disassemble.
A magical option is the OrigamiRack’s 6-Tier Bookshelf, which comes flat-packed, expands accordion-style (like opening an ironing board), sets up in two minutes and collapses for easy storage during the summer.
This is the bookshelf that I own, and as an apartment-dweller, I can’t think of an easier bookshelf option. If you don’t mind TV shopping, you can see how the Origami Racks work here.
CLASSIC DORM ESSENTIALS
Of course, most of the old standbys from my own college days are still in vogue because they are practical.
- Lamps – Dorm overhead lighting is uneven and harsh. Limit the eyestrain and brighten up the room with colorful clip-on and gooseneck desk lamps. (In 1985, I set off for college with an incredibly ugly, olive-green, wide-bar gooseneck lamp of my father’s that he may have had since he left the army in 1946. They really made things to last in those days! But your student will probably prefer a pop of color.)
- Reading backrest pillow – you can only sit in your 1950s-era desk chair so long before you’ll need an ergonomic break. Snuggle up to one of those pillows with arms to support your back while you read, game, or hang out with friends.
- Tower fan – desktop fans have limited range, and tend to be noisy and get dusty quickly. A tower fan takes up little real estate, can be tucked in the corner when not in use, and cools a stuffy dorm room. (Honeywell QuietSet, Amazon)
- Pop-up laundry basket – When I went off to college, Paper Mommy sent me with a full-sized rectangular laundry basket. It was great for carrying folded laundry back to my room, but it took up a ridiculous amount of floor space and ended up sitting on top of all my shoes in the wardrobe. A mesh pop-up laundry basket, available in any dollar store, is inexpensive and easy to tuck out of the way.
College has changed a lot since my day, when there was one TV for 144 students, no students had their own cable or internet, you needed memo boards because their were no cell phones, and you had to traipse through the snow to use a computer with green typeface on a black screen and a dot-matrix printer that sounded like a wounded animal. That said, a little ingenuity has always been able to keep students organized and productive in the dorm, and that hasn’t changed.
Study well, and whether you’re a parent or a college student, have a great year!
Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links, and I may get a small remuneration (at no additional cost to you) if you make a purchase after clicking through to the resulting pages. The opinions, as always, are my own. (Seriously, who else would claim them?)
Paper Doll Post:
You have given parents of college students as well as the students themselves lots of great options. Some of your dorm room organizing tips I was aware of but I had not heard about the bedside organizer, the shower curtain organizer, and the small refrigerator organizer. So many new options and terrific space savers. Well done, Julie!
I wish I had had that fridge organizer! When space is at a premium, even small vertical solutions bring huge wins! I loved this piece when I wrote it, and though there are lots of things I would have added if I wrote it today (just six years later), I’m delighted so many of the options are still apt.
Thank you for reading and for your kind words!
Posts like this always take me back to when I lived in residence for my last year of university – the first time I had my own space! I had so much fun setting everything up the way I wanted, even though we didn’t have all the cool products back then that are available now. (Nor did we have to worry about laptops and the like, but that’s a whole other thing!)
I stayed in a brand-new dorm last month when I went to my college reunion, and even though I know we added lots of touches of home and our own personalities, I did not remember my own dorm room feeling so bare and stark when I arrived. We had big wooden desks, shelves, drawers and wardrobes, and guest chairs; this room had drawer-less desks, just one tiny wheeled chair, and no carpet. If this is the way it is now, and I suspect it is, it’s even more important for kids to add their own touches! Sure, without a big desktop computer, you don’t need a big desk, but still…
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!
Can’t believe it is time for this stuff… but it is! Some of the young people I know from church will be heading off in a month. This is the time to shop and prepare.
I love many of these, and purchased them for my daughters. We also had the IKEA Raskog cart. I didn’t think of the pop-up privacy tent, but I completely agree that there are moments when this would be nice. Not to get graphic, but there were moments when I wish my roommate had had one of these as well when she entertained “visitors.” LOL!
Had I written this post this year, back in 2018, I definitely would have included the IKEA Raskog cart. I can’t believe how many useful I’ve found it for so many different types of clients!
While your roommate situation is probably funny now, I can’t imagine how frustrating that must have been. Oy, vey!
Thanks for reading!
Command Hooks were always our kids’ favorite tool for hanging everything from artwork to hooks for hanging coats. They work wonders and clean up well if the wall is in good condition. If it wasn’t, white toothpaste helped patch nail holes for rooms that couldn’t adhere to the Command strips.
Command strips weren’t even invented until 6 years after I graduated from college or I would have been ALL OVER those magical hooks. My sister destroyed her bedroom walls in the 1970s with tape and thumbtacks (so there are now circa 1970s posters still on the wall, covering other booboos)! I like the toothpaste tip!
Thanks for reading.
What? College days already? I guess it IS that time of year as we approach August. Where has the summer gone?
I love ALL your suggestions—the mini fridge caddy (amazing), bed tent, and origami rack/shelf, which I especially like. You gave me an idea about the bed storage caddy. Sometimes, when I travel, my room doesn’t have a bedside table or storage. It makes me nuts because I always have a pile of things (glasses, journals, books, pens, etc.) and nowhere to put them. I could bring one of these when I travel to solve that problem.
It’s been ages since I set up my dorm room. But I remember my mom saying that I was probably the only kid who had a bigger dorm room than my bedroom at home. I grew up in a tiny bedroom, and I loved it.
I know. The end of July means it’s almost August, which means it’s almost time for college. It’s almost enough to break the brain!
I’m picturing tiny you in your tiny room, all cozy. My bedroom was big; my freshman/sophomore double was smaller than my room at home. I lived in the same suite all four years; two years in one double, two years in the single next door to it. It’s amazing how cramped a double can feel when you and your roommate don’t see eye to eye and how big a single can feel when you want and need your own space! I am amazed at how much we wouldn’t need now that paper plays a smaller role and desktops (at least at college) have been replaced by laptops!
There are a lot of different bedside caddy styles. Make sure you pick one that doesn’t fit across the box spring (under the mattress) so you don’t have to secure it under the entire bed. You want one that you can just “tuck in” between the mattress and springs.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Great ideas here. I have found that dorm room closets are ridiculously small, so a lot of things that should be in the closet have to find other homes. You have some good options.
I only have boys, so my experience with them was that they bring a lot less into a dorm room than girls, so it is a little easier to manage. But I did have that conversation about sharing a space with my sons since they always had their own rooms at home.
You are so right. My dorm room closet/wardrobe in the 80s was huge compared to the smaller-than-a-phone-booth wardrobe in the dorm room I stayed in last month during my college reunion. I don’t know how anyone could could keep a small set of clothing, let alone all of the other essentials.
You’re also right that boys keep fewer of the creature comforts, and they tend not to decorate much, if at all. Girls seem to make their rooms more homey and collaborate better, or at least try to be more intentional about decor, though I’m not sure anyone used to living/sleeping in their own room enjoys the roommate experience.
Thanks for reading!