It can be hard to spice up a dorm room, or any room for that matter in college. Most times, you’ll get a really dull place and that makes it so much harder to decorate. There’s a lot of basic stuff you can do for your room to spice it up–tapestries, signs, bulletin boards…but those are all so “been there done that”.
Photo walls are a great way to spice up a room or boring dorm. They don’t have to necessarily have to be just frames, they can be anything from shelves, to light up signs, to conversation pieces, to a combination. However you decide, here are a few things to help you get started or things to keep in mind.
It seems weird to make the assumption that you wouldn’t know the theme of your own room, but sometimes this is super hard! When I first started my new room together in my new apartment, it had a lot of farmhouse but also chic to it. Farmhouse chic is obviously a theme, but make sure what you arrange on your photo wall is not too much or not enough of one or the other. Have some frames with pictures of succulents, and maybe a Chanel poster–don’t mix some abstract art piece into it–it’ll confuse people when they walk in your room.
Kind of similar to my first point, but look at a lot of ideas on Pinterest! You would be surprised how many things will pop up if you search “photo wall boho chic” or “gallery wall glam room”. Pinterest has helped me do a ton of things to my room I never thought would even be imaginable. For example, if you’re going for a gallery/photo wall for a glam room, a lot of ideas might be very clean with not much shape or dimension–in that case, it’s ok because it fits glam.
Contradicting what I said above, try and make sure your gallery wall isn’t too clean and perfect, but also not too wild with stuff. Youcan overdo a photo wall, especially if you have too many shapes going on. On the other hand, your photo wall might be too boring if all you have are the same size and colored frames. You can add a lot of variety without overdoing it by having two main colors, and two main shapes. For example, maybe black and white, but also circle and square–it gives a good variety without being too much.
Color can be super fun to play with in a dorm room, especially since they’re typically boring. But again, too much color can be distracting. Let’s say you want to go for a mostly white/cream themed room–it would be way too boring with just those colored things on the wall. Adding some pink or even notes of green, would be perfect. It adds a nice pop of color but would still go with your theme and gallery wall. You can even add the color by adding some plants, conversation pieces, etc. like I said up top!
I cannot stress dimension enough–even if you have to have all black frames, at least make them different sizes with different designs, etc. Or if you want to keep it all black, add in other things that are also black. Such as a light up sign, lightbox, mirror with a black frame, etc. Dimension makes it more fun to look at and interesting.
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