apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

i wish there was a low budget contest for normal apts too.

Great idea for a contest, I love it! I always thought it was so interesting to visit other dorm rooms at my school and see what had been done with the same exact jailhouse space as mine.

Especially now that dorm furnishings are so much more stylish. I went in '91 when flip 'n f---s and papasans were still hot. You couldn't buy a patterned melamine dish then.

Meg -I feel the same way BUT I did manage to get 2nd in the small cool contest and I swear, everything in my apartment aside from clothes and things comes to under $2000.

I second that! Great idea for a contest.

Make sure they are dorm rooms though and not apartments. It seems like colleges are foregoing traditional dorm rooms and building apartment complexes to be used as dorms.

This could be really cool. I'll bet there will be a diverse range of styles represented. I'm looking forward to seeing an elevated sleeping loft setup that I rocked in the early 90's. "You're twistin' my melon man!"

Laura, you're an inspiration! :-)

and yeah, there's a blurry line... dorms are a "single room in which you live and work" or "room in which you live" "sleep", what if it is a small apt with a kitchen (some dorms don't have kitchens other than per building, some have one per 3 bedrooms).

Not that those things make a crucial difference, just something to consider.

What a fantastic idea! I'm moving back to university in september - lookin forward to some inspiration!

This is a great idea! I hope you focus on temporary solutions like how to attach things to walls without nails/damage, how to get good lighting without overhead lighting and how to make walls look less nasty-white.

I'd do it, but I'm going to be in an apartment, buying a lot of IKEA and live in MN. I'm about as ineligible as a student can get.

By the way: I hope how to hang fabric from walls (like wallpaper, but not permanent) is addressed sometime, anywhere on AT. I'd love to know.

Great idea for a contest! Now what I wonder if this contest is limited? Are there many dorm complexes in NYC? Alot of campuses these days are indeed using "apartment" type housing for their students these days or perhaps students who come here to school end up just getting apartments with roommates. Those who live in NY (CUNY) and go to a NYC usually just live at home. I could be wrong though and just assuming.

Just curious as I have already graduated.

I need to really proof read .. what I meant is that most NYC schools are opting for apartment type housing complexes and those NY students who go to school in NYC usually end up living home.

Eddie, you can hang fabric wallpaper-style very inexpensively using fabric starch. I've never tried it but supposedly it's easy to remove and doesn't cause any permanent damage:

http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/lv_wall_coverings/article/0,2041,DIY_14133_2270741,00.html

The number of entries that'll be run is fewer than 30, if I'm reading the rules aright, so a city the size of NY could have very, very few dorms per capita and still come up with sufficient dorms to fill the roster.

The entries will get their analysis on smallcool.blogspot.com when the time comes... I'm thinking it's a useful pilot for what trends to count when Fall Colors happens.

This competition needs to happen for those of us not living in a dorm. With the same guidelines:

"We want to see who has the skill, the brains and the courage to overcome small spaces and small budgets. We're not looking for neat little IKEA creations, we want originality, style and - if you can swing it - vintage chic. "

• You must include at least 3 pieces of vintage/thrift furniture

I would love for this to happen!

The requirement that the dorm contains at least 3 pieces of vintage/thrift furniture seems unreasonable, considering dorm rooms already come with furniture and there isn't much space to introduce new pieces or stow the furniture provided.

Then again, is the standard-issue ugly dorm bed that's been used by 30 students before you considered "thrift"?

I loved when I lived in a dorm with undergrads in grad school...all my cheap stupid decorating looked great then! But, I'm sure the people entering this contest will blow my "design" out of the water...I've seen some pretty good ones in small cool in the past. Great idea!

i live in a live/work studio <200 sq ft and i share a kitchen and two bathrooms with 16 other people. does this mean i qualify, although my building is not run by my school's campus? or does this mean i have to wait until next year's smallest/coolest?

engineergirl, i was about to respond to that "3 vintage pieces of furniture" statement. it's ridiculous! i had a 10x10 cinder block dorm room, and could hardly fit my mini-fridge in there (at last it fit, but i still couldn't open it all the way). my room came with a desk, bed, dresser, and hanging bookshelf, and all that i replaced was a bed. when i added a larger, comfier chair to replace the one provided, that pretty much locked up all of the floor space. if i wanted to add any more furniture, it'd have to be on stilts above my bed or desk or something.

i think the rules should only be to require inclusion of "vintage elements" rather than a set number of furniture items. also, one can make furniture out of materials (vintage or otherwise) that weren't even furniture to begin with, which would show even more ingenuity!

ha, i guess i replaced a chair, too. but whatever. the point is: dorm living is rough!

i remember this smallcool very fondly:

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/small-cool-2007-entries/33-tims-overlapping-spheres-022139

biskinikill: I guess there are ways around it-- one of my friends in college had this crazy idea to build a king-sized bunk bed (why, I don't know, but he actually was able to do it), and I think he hauled the standard-issue dorm beds back to his parents' house to store for the year. But I'm guessing most students in NYC don't have that option.

And I don't know about other students, but when I was in college I sure as hell didn't have time to be perusing little shops and yard sales for vintage furniture. The doesn't mean my dorm room was devoid of style, though.

Ditto engineergirl (I'm an engineer girl too!) and biskinikill - I was fortunate enough to live in dorms that were really quite lovely, by communal living standards, at a character-heavy campus upstate...but nobody was bringing extra furniture into rooms that were very much scaled and stocked for efficiency. A criterion for thrifted "accessories" or something would be so much more dorm-scaled.

(Incidentally, would a third-hand thermodynamics text count as vintage decor? It was such a pretty yellow color, doubled as a step stool, door stop, tv tray, throw pillow...)

Late to the discussion, but we weren't *allowed* to remove the furniture. Then again, the same stuff was there when my mom lived in the same building in 1969--thirty years before I first showed up. Would that have counted?

Oh, and Mella DP...I think so! I could have hit three vintage items only if you counted my rug, painting, and an ancient copy of Grey's Anatomy (most helpful for reaching the above-closet storage).

Yeah, when I was living in dorms in NYC, the university had a policy prohibiting removal of furniture as well. As far as adding furniture, well: the average single-occupant dorm room was barely over 100 sq ft. Factor in a bed and desk, I never had room for more than an extra chair.

So I hope they'll allow vintage elements (like the suitcase in the picture). I suppose the requirement comes from the co-sponsor (Housing Works).

And add me to the list of people eager for a low-budget apartment contest.

I don't think the NYC range limit is unreasonable! In addition to NYU, you've got Barnard, Columbia, Juliard, just to name 3 others without really thinking.

What if AP posted [classy] notices at all the schools, so you got plenty o' entries? In my experience, college students are so crazed with registration/moving in/getting to know people that many great spaces might well go unnoticed.

How about the inclusion of (as renata suggests) 3 vintages "pieces" or "elements"? It's true about the issue of hair-raising furniture already in place. --Although those so afflicted should think of going to Housing and asking to have a few pieces taken out and stored. But maybe WAIT til the insanity cools down. . . . When they're done with more pressing issues, they'd be more friendly about it, perhaps!

I sent this to a friend who works at an art/architecture school in NYC. I hope some of the students enter! Maybe I can cadge some more ideas for my own house.

Most grad students don't live in "dorms," per se.

Also, what defines a dorm, exactly? Must it be a single room? If so, some Columbia undergrad dorms (i.e. quads) might be off-limits as being too "apartment-like."

Also, I'm a poor graduate student living in a dorm-sized apartment. Does that count?

So many questions...

I'd love to submit my bedroom, too.
but I'm a (European) artist not a student,
so I don't think I can take part?

I'm a design student in buffalo ny, not in nyc... boo hoo :(

shadowswimming: I'm a UB grad. I hope you have a great year.

Cheers!

I was an undergraduate at NYU, and as I recall, there were not only penalties for removing furniture, but in my dorm hall, there were penalities for ADDING furniture. I suppose the rationale against adding furniture is that you don't want a lot of graduating students leaving big bulky items like sofas and tables for the university to toss out at the end of the year. Hopefully some leniency will be allowed when it comes to the vintage FURNITURE requirement of the contest...like counting lamps/mirrors/or what we'd normally consider "accessories."

great contest. but students are not the only ones going back to school ... lots of new faculty out there w/ new offices. how about a contest looking at what design-minded faculty do with their spaces? often, the offices are super small, oddly shaped, have drop ceilings, etc. I've seen plenty of offices that could use a designers eye ...

There are so many of us out there renting rooms (or SROs) who don't have any say about living room, bathroom, kitchen, etc. It would be great to have a low-budget single room contest.

I agree betsbillabong, i do not rent a room, but live in a tiny space in LIC and it's hard for me right now.It's so cluttered in here. I do not want my space to be depresing, but I need a lot of design help. My total apartment including the kitchen and bath is about 175 SQ feet. If anyone has any ideas or other websites that can help me incorporate all my things into one space that would be great...

Yeah, the more I read, the more I think this contest should happen at mid/late semester. . . .

reesecup- join the Cure.

nightwind--
There is a contest per your description... it's the annual Smallest Coolest contest.

As far as the "three thrift minimum": Lamp, frame, mirror. That's not unreasonable even in a room where removal is limited.

I have to dig up the pics of my third-year room at RISD, for kicks. VERY Miami Vice. Cool(ish) then, hysterical now.

The "three thrift" requirement specifically says furniture. Lamp, frame, and mirror are ordinarily considered accessories. If "furniture" includes lamps and mirrors, the contest master might want to clarify.

I hope this isn't too dumb of a question, but where are the posts of the dorms? I can't find them lol

Does anyone know what happen to the Dorm posts???

Still wondering what happened?