With the right decor, you can turn a student apartment into your new home. To avoid spending your entire budget for the month as soon as you move in, make your own decorations from low-cost materials. The following ideas are especially easy to make and great for showing off your personality.
1. Customized Clock
A clock is an easy fix to make your walls look a little less bare, but interesting designs can be expensive. The solution is to buy a plain clock and customize it yourself. Some colour or a simple doodle can turn a basic clock into a statement piece.
2. Graphic Prints
Instead of purchasing artwork, make your own. There’s no need for you to be a great artist — simply adapt an image you find online into a graphic print. Start by choosing a vibrant colour for the background.
Then, choose a simple shape in a contrasting tone and layer it on top. The outline of something like a leaf, coffee mug, or animal is ideal. Finally, add a word or short phrase. Print out your picture and put it in a gold frame to create an original piece of artwork for your wall that has meaning to you.
3. Photo Collage
Another option for unique artwork is to make a photo collage. Print out your favourite photos of your high school friends, the adventures you’ve had at university, or your pets and arrange them into a collage. You can make more collages throughout your time at university as you make new friends and memories.
4. Homemade Headboard
If your bed doesn’t come with a headboard or you want to replace the one it has to improve the aesthetics of the room, create your own. All you’ll need is several cheap frames (you can purchase them from a dollar store) and a foam board to stick them on. You can then decorate the headboard however you wish, such as by spray-painting it the colour of your choice.
5. Hanging Clouds
A common type of decor in student apartments is fairy lights. Take this a step further by making some fluffy clouds to create a sense of stars twinkling in a cloudy night sky. To make the clouds, simply hot-glue some Poly-fil (the same material as you find in pillows) to paper lanterns. You may also like to cut out some stars to stick either to the clouds or to the behind around them.
6. Foam-Trimmed Mirror
Give a regular mirror a makeover using nothing more than foam spray and paint. Apply the foam spray in a zigzag motion to create a border and then paint it a colour that complements your room. The result will be an irregular frame that gives your mirror a fun feel.
Before you can start thinking about decorating your apartment, you need to find somewhere to live. For rooms for rent near University of Alberta, there’s 1TEN on Whyte. Our suites come with everything you need, including a desk and chair in the bedroom, a refrigerator, cooktop, and microwave in the kitchen, and a three-seat sofa or easy chair (in bachelor suites) in the living room. All you need to bring are your personal belongings to infuse the apartment with your style. Apply for a lease now.
