room courtesy of Bwoggers Sarah Kinney CC’20 and Lexie Lehmann CC’20, Carman Hall

When you have your own room to yourself, whether that be at home or a single in a dorm, you have the freedom to decorate however you want, according to whatever aesthetic you’re pursuing. However, when you’re living with a roommate, compromises have to be made. Here are a few factors to consider when you’re decorating a shared living space with your roommate.

Size of the room: The size of your shared room dictates how much personal space you get to have in the room: whether your bed and your roommate’s bed have to be right next to each other, for instance. It also restricts what you can have in the room, so if one person brings a storage cabinet, the other person might not have room for their bedside table. Hence it’s always a good idea to talk these things out beforehand, or wait until you see the room to assess the space situation and decide what you can and can’t have in the room.

Layout: How you will arrange the furniture in your room depends a lot on the size and shape of your room. Maybe the room is small enough that you really can’t change around the layout too much. Maybe you and your roommate are close enough friends that you want to put your bed together and completely share the room, instead of dividing sides. Your room might have a nook in it that’s the perfect size for a bed, desk, or couch. Or you might choose to bunk your beds for more floor space. (I’ve personally never liked bunk beds, but to each their own.)

Wall and window space: Maybe you’re lucky and have two separate windows, one for you and one for your roommate. Or you only have one window, whether it be big or small, and one person essentially ends up taking up the entire window with their bed or desk. Or you put a couch in front of it and share it. The possibilities are endless, but both roommates will probably want part of the window, so that’s something to consider. Wall space is important to think about in terms of what wall decorations you want to put up. If you and your roommate have a pretty clearly divided room in terms of which side is whose, you don’t have to fight over wall space if, for example, one person has a gigantic tapestry that takes up an entire wall, but with small, awkwardly shaped room, that might not always be the case, and talks beforehand about who’s bringing what could be necessary.

Storage space: The eternal dorm struggle is that you never have enough storage space. You have limited closet space to share with your roommate, and it could be wise to delineate at the beginning of the year/semester who’s using what cabinets. If one person has significantly more stuff than the other, a default 50/50 divide is also not always the most practical solution. Under the bed is always a great option, but if you have bunked beds, you might need to share that space or that might not be an option, so it’s necessary to remember that you could be sacrificing storage space for floor space when you decide to bunk beds.

My room a while ago when I was deep in my Van Gogh phase

Your taste vs. your roommate’s taste: With all the practicalities out of the way, you and your roommate have to coordinate your tastes and ~aesthetics~. Ideally, your room will show a good mélange of you and your roommate’s personalities, so that the room as a whole looks harmonious and put together. This could be hard to do if you have very different tastes and personalities. I’ve seen anywhere from rooms with matching beddings to a blank wall on one side and every free square inch of the wall covered with posters on the other side. Your living patterns also matter: maybe one roommate is a neat freak, and the other one is messy beyond control. If this doesn’t bother you, that’s great, but if it does, remember that this is a shared space and that compromise matters! As a final note, without good lighting, most good decorations look crappy anyway. Even a $5 lamp from Free & For Sale can dramatically improve your room’s vibe.