My son will be in Sue B. this fall, and we have some (admittedly picky) questions about what students do for storage and decoration in the rooms. We probably won’t buy a lot of the stuff until we get there, but it would be really helpful to have a sense of what we are getting into from some of the pros out there.
The floors are tile, so it seems wise to get an area rug. Is there an advantage to getting a carpet remnant that covers the whole floor, or do most students get area rugs? If an area rug, generally how big?
It looks like the beds can be raised up at least a bit. Can they be lofted? I didn't see any lofted beds when we visited.
Assuming you don’t loft the bed, what kind of underbed storage works well?
We can’t tell from the pictures what the closet has in it. Are there any drawers, or is it strictly a hanging bar inside?
Sue B. has the dining hall right there, and floor refrigerators. Is it really necessary to get a fridge for the room too?
Most students get area rugs since these are easier to move (in & out) and are easier to maintain/wash. All kinds of stuff will get spilled on the rug/floor, making a large piece of carpeting problematic.
Bed lofts
Yes, beds can be lofted. Students can do it themselves (bring tools–screwdrivers, pliers, adjustable wrench) or ask maintenance to do it for them. If lofted, students can fit a desk and dresser under the bed. Some students also used bed lifters–which are NOT supplied by UR and would need to be purchased and brought to campus.
Underbed storage
It depends on whether the bed is lofted, and whether bed lifters are used or not. Low plastic bins ought to work pretty well. D2 used to store her luggage under the bed and keep some of out of season clothing/shoes in that.
Closet
The closet has a large storage drawer inside.
Fridge
Personal preference. It’s a convenience thing. D2 liked having her own milk for coffee in her room, for example. She only had a room fridge freshman year. Sophomore year and later she lived in suites with a partial or full kitchen. (And keeping track of your stuff when sharing with 5 others is a lot more straight-forward than when sharing with 20.)
The issue with the floor fridges is sometimes they get jammed full of stuff. Occasionally, personal food and beverage items have been know to “disappear” from the common area fridges. And if no one takes responsibility for cleaning the hall fridge it can become a haven of moldy leftovers.
What else to bring?
Consider bringing a fan since there's no AC in most of the dorms and it can still get plenty warm in September.
A mattress topper or something similar since the mattresses are very, very firm.
Clothes hangers! (Not provided)
Over the door hook for hanging wet towels.
Only other suggestion is to have a container to put any contraband appliances in while on vacation.
And it’s easy to go to the room, figure out an arrangement - there are several options - and then go to Target, Walmart, etc. I think you can find videos of the rooms somewhere on the net.
You may find the bed already lofted and want to live with it that height. It can be changed.
Any thoughts on where to get an inexpensive area rug locally? We are flying in so there is no way we are bringing one along. I’ll only be there with the car for a day or two, so it would be great to be efficient about this part. Bed Bath and Beyond rugs seem pretty expensive, at least in a 5x7 (which seems the right size??). DormCo offers a bunch for cheap but that is online ordering, and I am not a great fan of online rug sales…
Target? Walmart? Henrietta, which is 10 minutes away, has every chain store you can want. (BTW, there are 2 Henrietta roads, next to each other. This will confuse you.)
The “move-in” fair that they had in the gym on the day DS moved in had some vendors selling dorm room accessories such as lamps, fans and rugs. I recall that they had 5x8 or 6x9 rugs for about $25. They were the kind with a real low nap. You wouldn’t mind throwing it out after a year. A rug in a guys room tends to accumulate a lot of crumbs and such! There is a Lowe’s down near that Target on Henrietta that sells that type of rug too.
Now having moved in, here is my take. It worked really well to bring a minimum of stuff with us and to assess the situation and then go shopping. We were able to buy the right lamp, rug, etc. for the room. Three walls were painted white and one a very nice green, so that was good to know before we went shopping. There are a large number of big box stores (Target, Walmart, Bed Bath, etc.) within a 10 minute drive.
We didn’t see much for sale at the move-in fair, but maybe that was different this year.
The beds are all set up to be about 30 inches above the floor, which provides for a nice storage space underneath. There are a limited number of loft kits available so most students don’t have them. We ended up getting an ottoman and a “pouf” at Target for extra seating in the room, and that should be fine.
Having tools was super helpful for assembling lamps etc. and we met other people who wanted to borrow them besides. We borrowed some WD-40 from people down the hall because the window was VERY squeaky when you opened it. A fan is really important when it is hot out - the rooms get very stuffy.
Also, we used a lot of Command hooks - for example, the doors seal too tightly to do an over-the-door hook for towels, but a set of big Command hooks works just as well and will come off easily if you remove them properly.
One of the students also had a good tip on installing a mirror on the closet door: Use the Command velcro with adhesive. This way you can velcro the mirror to the door. Then when it is time to remove it, you can unvelcro it and then remove the adhesive - much easier than if you just use Command strips.
