For many students, moving into their first dorm room can be a shock. In general, most dorm rooms are fairly spartan in both design and décor. There is a lot of beige and utilitarian furniture meant to withstand student lives.
And for new students used to having their families (mostly moms) decide on décor and furniture for the house and their rooms, the dorm rooms can seem, well, ugly. When confronted with small, beige, rooms that also contain a roommate, it can be a tad overwhelming.
Enter a new category of service: Dorm room interior designers. At many schools, particularly in the southern states, designers will makeover dorm rooms at costs reaching thousands of dollars. Depending on what is needed, and parents are willing to spend, makeovers can include custom fabrics and furniture, linens, light fixtures, and custom-made cabinets.
One service, Essentials by Eden, started in a dorm room and now with 25 seasonal employees, is priced at $5,000 per student for a full-service experience, including move-in day service. It had more than 200 clients this year at different design packages ranging from $549 to $1,849.
Have you chosen a color scheme for your room yet?
Group Activities and Discussion Questions:
- Discuss dorm room décor.
- Poll students: What did they spend on decorating their dorm room? How did they decide what to do and what to buy?
- View website of a dorm design company, Essentials with Eden: https://essentialswitheden.com/
- Show a video of dorm room decorating: https://youtu.be/P9EERqeQhZM?si=nNKBxyaoW1XliAkc
- Divide students into teams. Each team will be a dorm room design company.
- Students can use their laptops to search for design ideas on sites such as Pinterest.
- Have each team develop a marketing plan for dorm room design.
- Discuss target market. Consider geography as well as income, type of school, etc.
- Pay attention to pricing of both services and furniture.
- How should services be priced?
- Next, have the teams each develop a promotional campaign.
Source: Braff, D. (30 August 2024). Tuition: $9,400. Dorm room interior designer: $10,000? New York Times; Lyttle, Z. (27 August 2024). Inside the world of parent-led dorm design, where college move-in day costs $5K and a year of planning. People Magazine; other sources.
