Dorm 101: Home Away From Home

What do you need to make a dorm feel like home? It’s an important question. When people go to college, they treat a dorm room like it’s just somewhere to crash. Sometimes they are, depending on how much drinking and partying you did that night — but remember, you have to live there. Where you live is more than just a crash space, it needs to be comfortable and pleasant. It’s where you go to recharge your batteries, clean up, and prepare for whatever life is throwing at you. With this guide, you’ll have some insight on making your dorm room into your own little comfort zone.

Let’s start with lighting. Good lighting makes a home’s interior nice and sets a mood, but you can handle that yourself — we’re more about giving you enough light to study. Lucky for you, Ott-Lite makes a few good desk lamps. Next: Clocks. You need one to know how late you are for class, or how long you’ve been online gaming and downloading stuff. There’s a huge range of them available, but if you want something different we suggest Oregon Scientific’s ExactSet Projection Alarm Clock. It’s got a nice big digital display and it projects the time onto the wall in big red letters. It’s also connected to the Atomic Clock, for the most accurate time possible. (You may impress someone with that piece of trivia, or you may get called a nerd. Use it at your own risk.)

Now let’s talk about the atmosphere in there. Dorms are famous for having bad AC and heat. Unless you’re moving to some ultra-modern superdorm, assume this’ll be your situation. To help you cope with spring, Holmes makes some good fans for windows and tabletops, including a nice red metal one we happen to like. You can also stick this Honeywell standing fan in a corner, or get the Vornado Zippi mini-fan if you’re tight on space. Get a couple of these and you’ll have the air circulation you’ll need to keep cool. If your dorm lets you put in your own air conditioner (many don’t), the Haier HWR08XC5 and SHARP EnergyStar offer good cooling at an affordable price. When winter comes around, you can be ready for it with the Honeywell Power Oscillator Heating Fan, or the Holmes Twin Vertical Ceramic Tower Heater. You might also want the Bird-X Electric Foot Warmer Mat, to keep your toes warm when you’re working at your desk.

With the temperature issue handled, you can look into convenience. What makes your dorm convenient? That’s easy: Quick access to food and business tools. The ColdMate MR-128 Mini Cooler/Warmer will keep your sandwiches and soda cool, or your microwaved lasagna warm. If that’s not big enough for you, the Avanti Counterhigh Compact Refrigerator has enough storage space for over a week’s worth of food (as long as your roommate doesn’t start going into it). YOu can turn your dorm into an office with HP’s Officejet 5610 MultiFunction and Officejet 4315 All-in-One Office Machine.

So you’ve got light for studying, you know what time it is, the climate’s controlled, and there’s food & office equipment nearby. You’re now ready to be a productive student — except when you’re not in the mood. What about when you just want to relax and get comfortable? We’ve got you covered there, too. Pyramat makes a great relaxation tool — a comfortable fold-out mat that ahs a built in speaker system. You can lay back and listen to music, or hook it up to your game system and feel every sound effect. They’re available in blue and black. While you’re stretched out on your Pyramat, you can control your TV, mini system, CD and DVD players with the One For All 10 Device Learning Remote and Kameleon 8 Remote. Or you can make it fun by getting the Monday Night Football Universal Remote.

Follow these suggestions and you’ll have a dorm room that you actually enjoy being in — one that feels like home.

Tweet This Post