COLLEGE PARK, Md.--Before the door even opened, it was clear something was different about this dorm room.
The door?s dull gray paint was wrapped top to bottom in pink gift wrap, and a matching purple dry-erase board and Baltimore Ravens sticker adorned the center of the door.
But the door was merely a hint of what lay behind. As the door opened, the room blared pink from floor to ceiling. Bedspreads, lamps, shelves, even a Magic 8-Ball ? all awash in pink.
For residents Samantha Sebastian and Mona Beier, the hue is the culmination of a quest to transform their stuffy concrete dorm room into a livable space. So far, their room has cost the University of Maryland sophomores and their parents about $1,500.
Although that may seem like a high price tag, Sebastian and Beier are not alone. Research shows students spent $1 billion more on dorm decor this year than they did a year ago.
According to a study by the National Retail Foundation, college students spent about $3.6 billion on dorm furnishings this year, a 38 percent increase from the $2.6 billion they spent in 2004, with the average student forking out $266 on items for their room this year.
Males take their dorm room decorating even more seriously than females, spending about 20 percent more, the study found. Males spent an average of $284, compared with $238 for females.
For Sebastian and Beier, room decorating is not cluttering a room with frivolous trinkets. It is a method to make their room seem more like home and less like scholarly confinement.
This year, the pair spent an entire day ? 12 hours ? arranging their room, said Sebastian, of Baltimore.
?We wanted a bright room. You can?t be sad in your room,? said Sebastian matter-of-factly. ?You don?t want to feel like you?re in a jail cell.?
Black executive office chairs sit in front of Sebastian?s and Beier?s desks. Sebastian says hers cost $160, making it the most expensive item in the room, with the exception of their laptop computers.
Sebastian?s bed features a $100 pink bedspread, a $20 body pillow to keep her from rolling into the gap between the mattress and the wall and several throw pillows, including a pink Jolly Rancher beanbag pillow.
The handmade headboard, which Sebastian?s father crafted so her pillows wouldn?t slide off the bed, is covered in pink felt. All in all, the bed probably cost about $130.
Beier?s bed is also pink. It doesn?t have a custom headboard, but it does feature a $40 duvet cover.
Not everything in the room has a high price tag. Specks of white wall peek out from behind innumerable pictures, arranged in elaborate collages and housed in hand-painted, sequined frames. A trail of colored miniature lights shaped like flowers, globes and margarita glasses winds its way around the ceiling.
?We turn them on at night for a different feel,? Sebastian said.
A $10 purple-faced bobblehead clock sits on top of the DVD player, next to a pair of matching colored glasses.
?One day when I was visiting (Beier?s) house, she was like, ?Let?s go to Party City,? Sebastian said. ?We could decorate our entire room with Party City.?
But much of the room is occupied by practical things. Their blue carpet cost $75, and a floor lamp with shades in five different colors ? Sebastian?s favorite part of the room ? was about $15. Plastic drawers and storage boxes, $5 to $10 each, are piled under each bed.
A bright pink makeup mirror is clamped on top of her desk. Maybe that?s her favorite item in the room, she decides. The mirror cost between $10 and $15 ? ?not ridiculous, but not cheap either,? she said.
Sebastian said she doesn?t particularly enjoy visiting the relatively bare rooms of her male friends.
She has a theory about how males spend more than females. Walk into the room of a male student, she says, and you are likely to find a couch or futon along with expensive televisions, stereos and video game systems.
After all, 75 picture frames can be had for the price of an Xbox, and that?s not counting the games, which can be as high as $50 each. Terence Thomas, a head resident at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa., agreed that male students tend to focus their spending on high-end entertainment.
?Most males in college have some sort of electronic toy,? Thomas wrote in an e-mail. ?It may be a PlayStation 2, an Xbox or just some massive stereo, but most men?s rooms have something.?
Females? rooms have plenty of things too, Sebastian explains, but they?re not nearly as pricey. While the centerpiece of a room for today?s male college student is his surround sound system, the focal point of a female?s room can be something as simple as a color.
?Everybody who comes in here is like, ?It?s very pink,?? she says jokingly about her room. ?We?re like, ?Thanks, that?s what we were going for.??
Be the first to comment on this article!