How to Decorate Your College Apartment (Step-by-Step Guide)

Decorating your college apartment is probably the best part of moving into your apartment! The process can seem overwhelming, but when you take the right steps, it relieves that stress and brings back the fun.

In today’s post, we’re going to be going over how to decorate your college apartment from start to finish (without loosing your sanity)!

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How to Decorate Your College Apartment

1. Create a mood board

The first step in decorating your apartment is creating a mood board for yourself. Head to Pinterest and start pinning room ideas that speak to you to a Pinterest board.

You can do this process for each room you will be decorating, or just do one giant board filled with the overall vibe/aesthetic you are going for in your apartment.

After pinning your images, go through and pick your top 5-10 images (per room) that really resonate with you and download them to your phone or laptop.

Now that your pictures are downloaded, head to Canva, Picmonkey, or Photoshop (whichever you prefer) to start making your collages.

Here are a few mood board examples I found on Pinterest:

Your mood boards are what you will refer back to and draw inspiration from as you complete the decorating process of your apartment.

Seriously, I would be so lost without mood boards. It’s easy to veer off and start mixing and matching vibes that don’t go together and that is the last thing we want. Mood boards will keep you on track throughout all of decorating!

2. Choose your decorating style

If you don’t know what decorating style you like, after completing your mood board, you’ll probably have a pretty solid idea of your style.

Do you have to stick to one decorating style when decorating? Technically no. But you will find that some styles go better together than others.

Let’s take a look at some common decorating styles that are pretty popular right now.

Mid Century Modern

Bohemian

Modern Farmhouse

Modern

Glam

3. Decide on a color scheme

Now that you’ve picked your decor style, it’s time to choose a color scheme. Head back to your mood board and see if anything sticks out to you.

Are you more of a neutral gal? If so you’re gonna want to go with whites, creams, & taupes when decorating.

If you are feeling neutral, but want something with a pop, try picking an accent color. With a neutral theme, almost every color will work as an accent color.

Do you want to go with something vibrant and eccentric? Pick 2-3 vibrant colors that complement each other. Doing more than this will make your room look too busy and it will be too overpowering.

4. Create a game plan

Okay, before you jump into decorating, it’s important that you go in with a game plan. Decorating an apartment can be overwhelming, but when you do go in with a plan, it will make the process less stressful.

First, pick the order of the rooms you will be decorating. It may be easiest to start with your bedroom, then your bathroom, and finally moving on to the living room and kitchen.

Next, create a budget for each room. Yes, each room. I promise it’s worth it. It will help you to be able to allocate your resources better, and determine where you want to put the most money into.

Now that you have your decorating plan and budget plan, it’s time to mark your calendar with set goal dates that you want to have these spaces decorated.

It’s important to be realistic when setting these goal dates. When I moved into my first apartment, I wanted everything to basically be done in a week. But, it takes time to pull together your vision. Shoot for completing a room every 2-4 weeks.

5. Start with the biggest pieces first

When you begin the decorating process you are going to want to start with the biggest pieces first for each room. So for your bedroom, that’s going to be your bed and dresser. And for your living room, your couch, coffee table, tv stand, etc.

If your college apartment already comes furnished (lucky you), start with the primary staples in each room. For your bedroom, it’s probably going to be your comforter/duvet, a TV, etc. Primary staples in your living room are going to be your TV, lamps, rugs, etc.

6. Add your finishing touches

You’ve finally made it to the fun part! This where your apartment really comes to life and you get to truly make it your own and go all out. When it comes to adding the finishing touches (rugs, curtains, pillows, plants, etc), always remember less is more. Also, don’t forget your decor style during this part!

Head back to the mood boards you created earlier and see what decorating elements those images have in them and try to incorporate them in your room.

If you are looking for places to get affordable decor, here are some of my favorites:

Amazon
Target
HomeGoods
TJMAXX

If you shop at all of these places, I can guarantee that you are going to find EVERYTHING you need to make your apartment the cutest apartment ever!

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