One of the scariest parts about starting uni for many people is moving away from home for the first time. It can be difficult to settle in because of all the changes you face, including moving into and living in an entirely new room. Moving into a new room can be daunting, so here are some ways you can decorate your uni room to make it feel like home.
Printouts of your favourite photos
Many uni rooms will provide you with a notice board or an empty wall that you can use decoratively. If you don’t plan on sticking any lecture notes up there, you could use this space as a display of your favourite photos of you with family and friends. Not only will these treasured memories make you smile when you look at them, but they will also remind you that there are many people that care about you.
Take trinkets from home
If you have any small trinkets or memorabilia that you keep in your room or around your house, you could take them with you and place them around your uni room. These will remind you of home and might help to ease any homesickness you may be feeling if you know there are little pieces of home dotted all around. These could be teddy bears, plants, picture frames, small storage trinkets or hanging decorations.
Incorporate your favourite colour
If you have a favourite colour that your room follows at home, or if you have a favourite colour that reminds you of home, you could find a way to incorporate this colour scheme into your room at uni. You could try to find bedding that follows this colour scheme, or posters and paintings. Using your favourite colours can help to make you feel calmer if you’re missing home.
If you don’t necessarily have a favourite colour or a preferred colour scheme, research suggests that sea blue and lavender purple are among a list of colours with calming properties, while saturated yellow may be best for boosting mood. Finding a way to incorporate these colours into your room through the use of a colour scheme may help your room feel cosier.
Make your bed comfortable
Your bed at uni may act as your safe space, especially if you’re missing home. Getting some bedding that you like and some comfortable pillows will make your bed cosier and help you sleep better. You might even find that investing in a mattress topper can help if your mattress isn’t too comfy on its own. Finally, purchasing some decorative cushions and a throw or a blanket will make your bed extra cosy. Comfort can make all the difference when you’re far away from home and are struggling to settle.
Choosing comfortable lighting
Most uni accommodations may not allow candles in your rooms due to the fire risk they present. Therefore, fairy lights are an excellent and inexpensive alternative to make a room feel cosier and look prettier. Warm coloured fairy lights will give your room a soft glow, which can be comforting if you’re feeling overwhelmed. You can get fairy lights with different accents, like paper flowers or wooden love hearts, or even Halloween- or Christmas-themed fairy lights. Overall, fairy lights are a fun way to decorate a room whilst also changing the ambience too.
If you’re more into brighter colours, strip lights are very popular at the moment. They are also available to buy for cheap from many different places, and in many different styles. Due to the luminescent nature of strip lights, they may not make your room feel calmer, but it does mean you can control if you want the lighting in your room to be red or green!
Look online for inspiration!
If you’re struggling to come up with ideas to decorate your room and need some inspiration, websites like Pinterest and Instagram showcase many different ideas on how to decorate your uni room. On such websites, you’ll be able to find ideas on how to incorporate a colour scheme, layouts for photos, and places to get cute fairy lights.
The takeaway message
All in all, your uni room is yours to decorate. You can choose to do with it what you want, so long as it doesn’t break any of your contract rules, of course! But you still have quite a lot of freedom with choosing where to put things, what colour scheme to follow, what bedding to have and what lighting you want. The best way to make your uni room feel like home is to make it as comfortable as possible, with trinkets and photos of your home to remind you that home is never that far away.