Whether you’re going to a local University or you’re travelling across the country for your degree, moving out for the first time can be daunting. It’s no secret that most student accommodation is far from luxurious, but as you’ll be both sleeping and studying within these four walls, it is important that you make your room as comfortable as you can. However, there is no need to spend lots of money on expensive décor, especially when you’re living off your student loan, so here are 8 cheap ways to make your Uni feel like home:
What better to way to make your room at Uni feel more like home, than by putting up photos of your friends and family? Whether you frame them, put them on the wall or the windowsill, or even make your own corkboard collage, photos will make your Uni room feel more like home and will help you overcome home sickness. You can bring photos with you or even use your Uni printing credits to print some photos out at the library and if you want to frame them, cheap frames are available from shops like Wilko.
Colourful cushions and throws are one way to instantly brighten you drab Uni room, which is probably painted in magnolia or some other cream colour. Decorating your room with pretty soft furnishings, allows you to put your own stamp on your room, by choosing your own colour scheme to lift your mood and reflect your personality. Throws and cushions will also make your Uni room cosier and more homely, as well as adding warmth that could help you reduce your heating bills. Throws will also come in useful if friends come to stay, as they double up as duvets. They are affordable too and available everywhere, including from shops like Primark and Poundstretcher.
Decorating the walls with posters is another way to add personality and disguise the grim colour of your Uni room. You can choose pictures of your favourite band or posters from your favourite film or you could opt for a photo of a pretty landscape that inspires you. Whatever posters you go for, pick ones you really like as you’ll be looking at them for a year and hang them with blue tack, as putting nails in your walls is usually not allowed in student accommodation. Posters usually cost under £5 in HMV and you can buy them for even less online. This is one cheap way to make your Uni feel like home!
Lighting in student accommodation tends to be quite harsh and you’ll probably only have one fixed ceiling light, which is not the best for when you want to relax after a long day of studying. If you want to create a more relaxed environment where you can wind down comfortably, purchase some fairy lights. If you buy battery powered ones, you can put them anywhere you want, such as along your windowsill or book shelves or even around your headboard. Fairy lights are usually cheap to buy and the best time to get them is around Christmas when there are lots of different types available. This is one sure way of making your Uni feel like home!
Plants are a great way of adding colour to your Uni room, as well as breathing more oxygen into the small space. If you’re a budding botanist, you could buy a beautiful house-plant that you’ll need to water regularly, or you could choose a low maintenance plant which requires little care and attention, like a cactus. Plants have added benefits such as helping to keep the temperature down in warmer months and reduce airborne dust levels. You can buy affordable plants from your local garden centre or a homeware shop like IKEA, so do some research and choose one that suits you, to make your Uni feel more like home!
6. Rugs
Like cushions and throws, fluffy rugs can make your Uni room cosier and more welcoming. Rugs are great for disguising worn or stained carpets and for softening hard floors. They can also be paired with matching cushions to brighten your room and can be rolled up to save space when you move. You can pick up inexpensive rugs from stores like Argos or IKEA, or you may even find a second-hand one in a charity shop at a discounted price, so it doesn’t have to cost you lots of money to make your Uni feel like home!
If you’re an avid reader, you should bring along some of your favourite books to read in your spare time. These will be a welcome sight on your shelves alongside your stack of course books and can be used to help you wind down before bed, after staring at your laptop all day. You can pick up second-hands books for as little as 5 for £1 in charity shops, so it won’t cost you much to revitalise your book shelves on a regular basis. This is a very cheap way to make your Uni feel like home!
Although you may not be able to do this in your first-year halls as the furniture is normally fixed in place, if you move into a house, you may want to rearrange the furniture. All rooms in student accommodation are fairly standard and are set out in the same way, but you can put your own stamp on your room by moving your furniture into a position you like.
For instance, you may want to move your desk under the window for more natural light or your bed away from the door to avoid draughts. You might just want to move your furniture closer to the plug sockets for your convenience. This is a completely free way of making your Uni room feel more like home, so why not enlist the help of a friend and give it a try?
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