"There's a leaf on the floor ... how did it get there? I wonder who left a leaf on my floor!"
-- someone's crazed roommate
You are a bright-eyed, intelligent young person with the world in your hands. You know what you want to do and who to step on to get there. In short, you have everything, except for one crucial piece of knowledge:
How do you spruce up that dorm room?
If you are like most people at the collegiate level, you have no idea. Perhaps you are a 'shman ... perhaps an upperclassman who has had particularly decorative roommates in the past but now find yourself in a single. It is a question that touches all of us, because it is our little nook, our cranny, our hobbithole. As Daniel Webster once said, "It is a small college, sirs, but there are those who love it and its grubby Choates."
It is necessary to examine what we have as a space and what we have to work with, of course. Take a look around your dorm. Each room has certain qualities that can be accented by a bit of effort. For example, the charming bars on the wall that encase Ethernet wires. You could paint them with red and white stripes and have candy canes. Or, the radiator that makes horrible noises in the middle of the night. (You are well aware of the sound -- it is several gnomes with hammers trying to break free of the radiator.) Take the radiator and attach an amplifying device to it. Be sure to record the noises the radiator makes for a few nights. I guarantee you will be able to start a new trend -- radiator music. When people tire of playing their Aires CDs over and over, just say, "Hey fellas, have I got a treat for you."
You also probably have at least one poster that is half-hanging off the wall. There is an easy way to deal with this situation. Affix several posters around the dangling original one and make these new posters hang off the wall too. You will then have a series of haphazard posters, and we know that a series of anything can be considered art. Invite your friends over to admire your aesthetic acquisition. Just remember: Monet had a whole series of haystack paintings.
We have focused on the purely observable thus far. Now we must address those items which must be utilitarian and at the same time art pieces. You probably have the box your iMac came in stored in the basement. This gorgeous cardboard structure functions quite well as a table. I must admit, it was a risk using my iMac box in this way, and I was anxious for the first few weeks as to what people would think. But the response has been overwhelmingly positive. On a related note, if you have purchased a printer, its box makes an excellent ottoman.
If you have a fireplace, it can serve as a tolerable cabinet (i.e. "Dude, where are the chips?" "In the fireplace, help yourself. They're barbecue chips."). I know a clever decorator who stores books of poetry from English class in his fireplace. He says it would be "an unfortunate accident" if he started a fire on top of his Sylvia Plath collection.
If there is a tiled floor in your dorm, keep in mind that you will never be lacking a chessboard. However, the nights and mornings will be cold on your feet. Even if you get a carpet, it will not cover all of your floor. Basically, you're screwed.
In summary, with a little ingenuity and a lot of tastelessness, you can create a dorm for yourself and your roommates that will be cozy and at the same time will make people say to themselves, "That place is a shrine to art." Being a promoter of Art-Nouveau will boost your popularity and help your grades. Your crush will ask you out. All of your wishes will come true. You will win a trip to Disneyland sponsored by Bill Gates. Just send this column to 20 people.
You didn't really expect there to be a point to one of my columns, did you?
