This Incredibly Chic Dorm Room Makeover Proves No Room is Beyond Hope

Name: Isabella and Mary Ashlyn
Location: LSU, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Going off to college is an exciting time…new friends! New challenges! But it’s also a time of stuffing yourself into a tiny concrete box with a complete stranger when you move into a dorm room, an experience that can be made much more attractive when your mom is an interior designer. Melissa Moffett’s daughter Isabella and her roommate Mary Ashlyn’s dorm room went from a cold, grayish, empty room to a cozy and chic space for both studying and relaxing.

Editor’s note: We actually ran this post last year, so it’s possible Mary Ashlyn and Isabella have matriculated from this particular dorm room and style. But the ideas contained in this teeny concrete room are good enough to revisit semester after semester!

Here’s Melissa: This is my daughter Isabella and her roommate Mary Ashlyn’s dorm room at Louisiana State University. Isabella and Mary Ashlyn are both first year freshman living away from home for the first time.

Although the girls had never met before they went through LSU’s residential housing dorm match process (filling out a questionnaire concerning likes, dislikes, majors, personality etc.) they ultimately decided to become roommates.

Though their dorm building is one of the oldest on campus, (with smaller rooms and shared hall bathrooms), they chose to live here because of the larger-than-average dorm closets and its centrally convenient location.

They did an excellent job texting photos to each other of their personal style and deciding on a rose blush and gold color scheme grounded with black and white.

They shared their vision with me (mom and aspiring interior designer with a very small home-based business ) and I helped them pull the overall look together on a shoestring budget. The items in the room include custom-upholstered headboards cut out by my husband (made from a $10 piece of plywood) designed to fit the size of existing dorm beds. I also quickly painted a couple of pieces of abstract art. Other items shown are curtain panels, a cubby, and a lamp from Target, an IKEA rug, bedding from Pottery barn teen, a metal deer head from Marshall’s and many Command hooks.

The room was a collective effort quickly pulled together and installed in a day with much help from Isabella’s father, stepfather, stepmother, grandmother and myself.

They love their tiny fabric covered cinder block walled dorm room.

Coral Solid metallic window curtain — Target
Nate Berkus Stitched Edge Window panel — Target
Emily and Merrit Pirate Stripe Sheets — PBteen
White rosette Quilt — PBteen
Gold Dot sham — PBteen
Sparkle throw pillow — Target
Lamp — Target
Blush throw blanket — Target
Extra long dorm bed skirt — Dormco

Thanks, Melissa, Isabella and Mary Ashlyn!