I love home decorating. I love home decor magazines. I love Houzz, the site where you can sneak peeks at the finishes others have used in their own homes. What a nice feature to be able to see 1,000 sq ft of flooring in someone else’s home before you shell out the cash to do the same. I love looking at fabric, feeling the weight of sumptuous velvet or the airiness of silk. I like to squish and squash every well made accent pillow until I find just the right density of down. I love to Hassan chop my hand into the top of the square pillows to make a lovely little V. I love every aspect of home decorating.

Except decorating my own home.

It all just seems overwhelming. The options are endless. Linen or leather? Patterned or solid? Tone on tone or vibrant colors? Too many choices for this lady who would have been well served living in the communist block in 1960. One choice? Awesome. I’ll take it!

Aside from the mountain of decisions required to make a selection, I’d be remiss not to note the expense. If you haven’t shopped for furniture or furnishings lately, lemme tell ya, they aren’t just giving that stuff away. Couches can run more than what I paid for my first car. Art work more than a mortgage.  I am left trying to justify the purchase of a new piece of furniture while fully aware that anything I buy will inevitably have a petrified layer of goldfish crackers under and on it. This equation leads me to believe I am nothing short of silly if I spend more than $50 for a sofa.

$55 max.

My sister is currently living abroad and she and her husband chose to rent while away. She was bemoaning the fact that she recently visited other ex pats whose homes are enviable. Well decorated. Homey. Tastefully appointed. Little sis wants to decorate but inevitably (wisely in my eyes) chooses to spend her time exploring their city or traveling further abroad. During our discussion, we decided the real answer is simply to resort to college decorating tactics.

After letting the idea marinate, I think we may be on to something.

I live with four children who often act like drunken monkeys….no offense to drunks or monkeys. Expensive furniture and gallery walls are lost on them. They would be best served by fantastic frat tactics. Perhaps your situation is the same. If so, I urge you to mentally transport yourself back to your own college years. Breathe in the surroundings. We were minimalists before it was cool.

If you are female and went to college in the 1990s, you likely had no less than three Ann Geddes prints. Because what says Independent Young Woman more than displaying a row of chunky butt babies dressed up like sunflowers? The answer is nothing. Perhaps you also decorated as my roommate and I did in 1995, buying an extra roll of leftover wallpaper border and accenting your cinder block dorm room wall. Heck yeah.

If you’re a male, you may have used thumbtacks to hang Ansel Adams posters silently proclaiming your love for all things Western nature. Although you never ventured west of the Mississippi. Whatever. It made a statement. You may not have traveled extensively yet, but by golly, you sure would once you were free from the constraints of university. (My sister notes that she currently has an Adams hanging on her wall. She is already one step ahead…..)

Beer caps and bottles also seemed to stand in high regard among college kids. I always pondered which frat guy used handyman skills to build the shallow shelf ALL around the room just shy of the ceiling. High enough only to allow for the placement of exotic beers like Coors. Natural Light. Schlitz. And the rare Rolling Rock crown jewel, evidence of a recent visit from the parents who spared no expense.

I visited a local retailer that sells exquisite home furnishings. I only use the word exquisite when I talk about newborn babies (because they are God breathed, fresh and perfect) and when discussing some home accessory I will never be able to place in my home due to aforementioned goldfish crackers or cost. I fell madly in love with the most exquisite window panels I’ve ever laid eyes on. For $750 per panel (our windows would’ve required at least 6) I could’ve taken those gorgeous ivory beauties home just in time to have them smeared by hands covered with 75 cents worth of yellowish cracker. Alas, they are not adorning my windows, which remain hopelessly naked. Instead, the panels remain alone at the store until someone with more budget for window treatments and less budget for Pepperidge Farm products snatches them up.

Now that my sister and I have begun our home decor revolution (brace yourself for what will inevitably be our upcoming HGTV show) I have the answer to my stark windows. NO ONE had drapes in college. Even if you left the dorm or sorority house to move into your own rental home, you likely still didn’t have window treatments. Pray tell, Emily. What did you have? A simple blanket or a sheet tacked around the window. If you were my husband, you had a thick San Francisco 49ers blanket forcefully nailed into the window sash. It was love at first sight.

Classy? Perhaps not. Effective at blocking out the sun until 1 PM every day? Apparently.

My recent obsession has been making our bed more cozy. My down comforter has lost its oomph and my decorative pillows have been used one too many times for fort building by the goldfish kids. I’ve spent much too much time pondering how to pull together this small area. When forced to use my new decorating method, I think back to my friends in college who had the right idea. Down comforters schmumforters. There were no duvets or euro shams. It was all about an old mattresses sitting on plywood. There was a good chance there were no box springs. No headboard. No foot board.  If your mom cared super extra, she would force a comforter on you while visiting for Parents’ Weekend. Otherwise you had a sheet and maybe some rag tag blanket.

If you were REALLY living the college experience, you traded a bed for a futon. This multi functional piece of furniture served as couch AND bed, all for the price of a large pizza. Why I didn’t place five futons in our current house versus stressing about wood choice, size and height of bed, I’ll never know.

Dorm and frat accessories brought another layer of self expression altogether. If you were worldly, you had a fuzzy Bob Marley poster under a black light. A Rastafarian hat sat nearby. Or perhaps bustled Moroccan tapestries hung from the ceiling. A shirtless Jim Morrison poster highlighting your intellect and highly sensitive nature. Christmas lights stretched from one corner to another screamed romance, whimsy and Merry Christmas all at the same time.

We recently replaced every doorknob in our home. It cost roughly what Ivy League tuition will be in 2035. Had I previously subscribed to College Decor, I would have saved my eighty million dollars and simply used……wait for it………..beads. Tacked to the top of the door casing, cascading gently down like some Brady Bunch beauty.

Beads.

Who needs to discuss six panel versus solid doors? Hinge, panel or plank? End the discussion and hang up some beads. Extra points if they are iridescent purple.

If you feel your home is less-than, disheveled, slightly below average, don’t fret. Just frat. There is nothing wrong with your house. On the contrary. The problem is with your measuring stick. Throw away every copy of Traditional Home, Elle Decor and House Beautiful. Make a trip to your local university’s Greek housing and do some idea scouting. Then head to your local thrift shop and spend every penny of that $80 budget.

Home. Sweet. Dorm.

I would love to know what exquisite design techniques you used for your very own college/early 20’s residence.

Emily

**I have unearthed the link to subscribe to TickingTimeMom. I would love it if you’d register your email in the space above before I accidentally delete it again. I promise no Spam and only amazing decorating ideas will come to your inbox. Thanks for reading!**