Try These Affordable DIY Hacks to Create a Dreamy Dorm Room

Meet Addison Sapp, also known as DesignsByAdds: a biology major with a serious passion for dorm design, who transformed her Wofford College dorm room into an adorable space inspired by her South Carolina surroundings and the French Riviera, drenched in bright blue hues.

While decorating her room during her freshman year, Sapp discovered her love for interior design and works with fellow students to help them make over their college living spaces. Now, she’s here to spill on her decorating process, affordable DIYs, and top tips for making a dorm room feel like home.

The Inspiration

Born and raised in South Carolina, the traditional southern look has always appealed to Sapp, and served as a starting point when designing her dorm room. Sapp drew most of her inspiration from grandmillennial and coastal articles.

“I also traveled to Charleston several times before I moved in, and admired all of the delicate blue decor,” she says.

She has always been a lover of bright tones and dopamine decor, citing her personal aesthetic as vibrant and colorful.

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Sourcing the Decor Finds

Another major source of inspiration for Sapp came through the centerpieces of her dorm decor: a coquette, vintage-inspired set of matching sheets and curtains. As Sapp was form shopping, she came across Pottery Barn’s dorm collaboration with LoveShackFancy.

“This was my absolute dream and I picked out the sheets and curtains from here that essentially pulled my whole vision together,” Sapp says.

Sapp fell in love with the Pottery Barn soft furnishings at first sight and continued to plan the rest of her space around the sweet blue pattern featured by sourcing antique frames, finding wall decor, and selecting the rest of her bedding while she waited for her dream pieces to arrive.

Creating the Cozy Factor

Moving away from home for the first time, settling into life at university, and living in a dorm room comes with its ups and downs, but curating a welcoming sanctuary to come back to after classes helped Sapp to navigate this time of transition.

One of her top tips to transform the feeling of a clinical college space in an RA-friendly way is to fill the room with soft furnishings—bonus points if they coordinate with your color scheme.

“The curtains created an extra level of coziness in my room, and turned a ‘dusty dorm room’ into a comfortable living space,'” she says.

Sapp explains how her two rugs and decorating her blue futon with tons of pillows and blankets made her space cozier.

A sense of home doesn’t just come from snuggly textures, though. It may be a cliché, but home truly is where the heart is, so Sapp suggests bringing in personal touches to remind you of your loved ones. These heartfelt pieces don’t just have to be photos—Sapp creatively honored a relative through the golden butterflies scattered across the room.

“I love butterflies because my late grandmother also loved them. Adding them to the walls helped me remember her, but also did wonders to cover up the mundane wall color,” Sapp says.

DIYs and Wall Decor

Scrolling and searching for dorm inspiration will show you countless aesthetics, and picking just one can be a struggle. Sapp’s dorm shows you don’t have to choose: blending a traditional coastal charm with a coquette French feel, and fusing the two looks through the use of a consistent blue and white color scheme that both aesthetics have in common.

Creating a completely customized theme and your own personal aesthetic becomes possible through a combination of curated decor picks and DIY projects, which Sapp showcased through her wall decor.

“I wanted everything to match cohesively and give the feeling of a French manor,” she adds. “So over the summer, I found some antique frames and painted them blue and white to match my theme. I put cute photos from Pinterest and VSCO to add to the theme. ”

Her Dorm Decorating Advice

As a dorm interior designer, Sapp is now spending her summer helping friends and clients create the college rooms of their dreams. Whether you hire a designer or DIY your dorm decorating process, planning ahead is one of her top suggestions for incoming students.

Over the summer, Sapp used her free time to plan out how each wall would look like and used Procreate on her iPad to visually lay everything out—this brought her vision to life.

Freshman year is a time of self-discovery and learning what you love, and decorating a dorm room is one of the best places to start experimenting with different design styles. Sapp encourages leaning into that newfound sense of freedom, and embracing individuality when creating the space you’ll spend your first year of adulthood in.

“My biggest piece of advice is to do what makes you happy,” she says. “Don’t try and mold your room into something that isn’t you, and if you can’t find something you like, try making it yourself! My DIYs are definitely what made my room fit my style and make me at peace.”