Dorm rooms are tiny. The dorm decor economy is not.
Dorm rooms are tiny. The dorm decor economy is not.
The big picture: College dorms are becoming customized, social-media-ready micro-apartments, but the market looks wildly different depending on which side of the Mason-Dixon line your campus sits.
Zoom out: The multi-thousand-dollar "designer dorm" industry has grown alongside viral TikTok dorm tours and hauls, and parents hoping to make their child's transition to college easier.
- Shelly Gates, founder of Mary Margaret Designs, an interior design company that decorates dorm rooms alongside other projects, remembers her Louisiana State University dorm as "essentially a prison cell."
- This year, Gates is handling about 35 dorm rooms. Some of her previous build-outs have reached $20,000, which she pitches as a four-year investment.
State of play: In SEC country, where Gates does a lot of her work, dorm rooms are often personalized with monograms and items reflecting school spirit.
- Her projects can include custom desk canopies made from halved umbrellas, remote-controlled chandeliers and commissioned art.
- "I want the art to be a memory of college," Gates says of those pieces. "I don't want it to be something they outgrow."
The other side: In the Northeast, dorm design can be couture, but the biggest luxury is having someone else wrestle with a U-Haul on a cramped city street.
- Boston-based Dorm Essentials Co. co-founder Kelly Mahoney says almost 99% of her clientele are from out of state or abroad. Her team helps families avoid shipping logistics or scavenging the "picked over" supplies at the local Target.
- "The dorms in the Northeast are a lot different than they are down South or that you see on Instagram...," Mahoney says. That makes vertical storage or containers hidden under beds invaluable.
Between the lines: TikTok-savvy DIYers also want the look — without the five-figure bill.
- Henley Bedwell, an incoming James Madison University freshman, has been documenting her dorm room finds on TikTok. She used a room-design app and JMU's virtual tour to map the space, then built a shared registry, so she and her roommate could coordinate bedding, storage and decor.
- "I need to make this space as comfortable as I can to make me not scream at the fact that I won't be with my family," Bedwell told Axios.
- She and her roommate spent roughly $2,500 total. Bedwell told Axios that she chose pieces she can hopefully reuse, including twin bedding, a headboard, dresser and unique vases.
Zoom out: Male students are getting into the trend, too.
- "We don't call it a design with the boys. We call it a room layout," Mahoney jokes.
- Gates has also made custom pieces for boys, including a vintage painting of former Ole Miss quarterback Archie Manning.
The bottom line: Whether the room is getting a meticulously planned DIY makeover or a professional install, the end goal is the same.
- "No matter how people think how absurd spending all this money on your dorm room is, your kid's gonna be here for the next nine months," Bedwell says. "Why would you not rather them be comfortable?"
Go deeper: Dorm room move bookings grow nationwide, Taskrabbit says - Axios Colorado Springs
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