Four roommates in the Village have found inexpensive ways to recreate the pages of a Southern Living magazine in their dorm room.
Kathryn Boswell, sophomore in business; Grace Devaney, sophomore in public relations; Taylor Fitzgerald, sophomore in early elementary education; and Hillary Street, junior in biomedical sciences, collaborated to develop a unique living environment.
"The key word that we used was 'homey' and just really comfortable, lots of soft textures and fabrics that were really soft and warm," Boswell said.
She and her roommates worked together to create a comfortable atmosphere in their dorm room. The four used their own styles for their individual room decor, Boswell said.
"It was definitely a collaboration," Boswell said. "We all took different parts of our style and went with a warm color palette, something that would be great to come home to after a long day."
Boswell said they used warm reds, earthy greens, browns and plum shades for the color scheme in the common room.
For furnishings, the girls used wrought iron and stained, antique-looking wood.
"It's kind of a lot of red and green," Boswell said. "I'm an Alpha Chi, so that was kind of part of it. It wasn't the main goal, it just worked out that way."
The decorations for the dorm were also fairly cheap, with many coming from thrift stores and closeout sales, Boswell said.
"I'm from Dallas, Texas, and we found a lot of stuff from Hobby Lobby because there was one in my hometown that was closing," Boswell said. "We worked a lot on finding the clearance prices and stuff, and a lot of the stuff I found from home is stuff I'm going to get to use in my apartment next year."
The girls also saved money by creating some of their decorations and furnishings themselves.
Boswell and her mother decorated a picture frame and wooden cutouts of a cross and initials with different colored beads, accenting the colors of the rooms.
Fitzgerald made a table out of an old window, painted the frame to look antique and added photos under a panel of glass.
Boswell said the four had a conversation at the end of last semester and decided on the common area's theme, as well as how to be cost-efficient in decorating.
"We decided on something really warm," Boswell said. "Not anything super intricate and not super gaudy, but something that was kind of clean lines and basic and stuff that we could use for a while.
"If we're going to put some cash flow into it, we want to be able to use it for a while."
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