To answer the question about how big the room is - it’s HUGE. In any other university, the doubles in this dorm would be quads. The girls got an early room selection slot and were able to secure a partly extended room, which means that due to pipes running on one side of the room, the other side is 2’ longer than the normal doubles. We were expecting roommate to take the longer side since she was moving in first, and D really didn’t care about that. Each closet is 48" wide. Like I mentioned earlier, I thought D was bringing too much (because I only took two suitcases and bedding) and as it was, she has room under her bed and we had nothing to put on the shelf in the closet, so we put empty boxes we’d used for moving there.
Today’s perspective is making things almost humorous. I do have a picture of the desk with the pineapple and two lamps on it and I’m going to have to see about making that my avatar.
The photo, @SuburbMom - The chair and lamp shown are actually pretty nice - but so much freaking clutter that any effect is lost. Even that little piece of the room looks like a Home Goods exploded!
My avatar is now a picture of roommate’s desk before the hutch was added. Now you can see why the TV just had to go on D’s desk LOL. I kinda doubt any school work will be don there, despite the ability to light it really well with the two lamps.
And no, that too-big-to-work-with-the-desk fancy chair (with one of the 22 pillows and half dozen throws on it) didn’t come with the room. I don’t think I listed it as one of the pieces of furniture - so that makes 12 extra pieces added. And I forgot about the multi level shoe rack in the closet, so the total is up to a lucky 13!
My son’s freshman roommate brought, in addition to the usual fridge, microwave, etc., a full-sized water dispenser of the size and type that would serve an entire office of people for days. He also brought hundreds, literally hundreds of boxes of shoes/sneakers, plus multiple computers for the operation of his successful online shoe business. He lives locally, so he often had his employees in the room, as well as people purchasing his product. It was an absolute mess - the college shut it down later in the semester due to fire code violations.
Yikes! Who brings a ceramic pineapple to college? IMO your daughter should start metaphorically putting her elbows out to reclaim her space. If the nightstand is on daughter’s side of the room she should start using it. If the roommate isn’t happy she can put it back on her side of the room.
Both girls will accumulate things as the year progresses so it’s likely your daughter’s space will fill in more in the next few weeks.
@doschicos - The stuff was nice, completely coordinated (the pineapple theme was carried over to the laundry hamper as well) and probably all bought from Home Goods. There was just So. Much. Of. It.
Oh. My. Gosh. There are no words. I am trying to figure out what all that stuff is on her desk. @SuburbMom, can your daughter take pictures of the rest of the room, and you can change your avatar daily? Tell her your virtual friends on CC would really appreciate it! [-O<
SuburbMom, I want to give you total props for remembering the details of this and bringing them back to us. Good luck to your daughter. I hope the roommate is not an actual jerk.
A sofa
An extra computer desk so that her own desk was uncluttered (this was the days of desktops and humongous monitors.)
So much stuff in her closet that her laundry basket was out in the middle of one wall
Wheeled storage carts.
A bunch of other things I can’t remember.
D was constantly fighting for space, and tripping over the other computer desk which took up a sort of “elbow” in the room, blocking egress from one part to the other. Also, roommate would tell her that D’s desk, the only place she could keep anything, was not neat enough.
Roommate came from the college town, got the room first, and spent the rest of year sexiling D with hometown BF.
Wow @SuburbMom and I was telling my wife and D that they were crazy for taking two extra pillows. Just curious, did you D and her roommate talk before arrival on what they were each bringing? My D and her roommate had no drama with their move yesterday. We did see several kids bringing in extra stuff but nothing to the extreme that you had. Good luck to your D, hopefully the semester goes well with her roommate.
You said they got an early room draw slot. Are they frosh, or did they know each other before? I have a metal pineapple like that – but it is flat on one side, it is a bookend.
And 7 towels – is kid used to having a fresh towel every day? I bet that won’t last long if she is doing her own laundry!
@doschicos - I’m actually hoping she is and that seeing this might, just might, bring about some realization of how crazy the situation is/was.
@CottonTales - The stuff on the desk is Pinterest vomit. Since you can’t really blow up the picture to see details, you’re missing the polar bear holding the color coordinated post-it notes. Mason jars (of course!) Two fancy gold desk organizers, the metallic (I think they’re gold) stapler and tape holder, a fan in the exact same color as the post-its and Keurig, the word “New York” in gold, a framed word art of “# Blessed”, acrylic holders of various office supplies, and several of those recipe/photo holders. And that’s not all!
I was a lunatic on move-in day, but my husband and son wouldn’t let me make a fuss. It really was dangerous because of the placement of the water cooler and the shoes - it was very hard to get in and out of the room. He moved in first, so it was a challenge and a half to get my son’s stuff in. I thought my kid had too much and was embarrassed - he’s a business major who was required to have business formal and business casual clothes, as well as clothes for his sport and a tuxedo for performances, plus golf clubs, instrument, brown and black dress shoes, and the usual stuff every college kid has. However, we made it all fit in the provided wardrobe, dresser, and under bed bins without encroaching on the other side of the room. I will concede, however, that 32 ties was probably too many, although many people in his classes were glad to borrow them!
@suzy100 - She put the chair under D’s bed! (Removing it was the first symbolic gesture towards reclaiming D’s space.)
@dcolosi & @intparent - They are freshman and lucked into the room. They did talk before hand. That’s what makes this unbelievable. We thought everything was worked out. For example, we were bringing curtains and rod for the room, roommate was bringing shower curtain and bathroom rug. D texted photo of cheap rug we’d found at Ikea for between the beds and roommate said it was great, so we bought it. We knew she was bringing a table for between the beds (so nightstands could go next to the desks). So when we showed up and found the room covered with two large shag carpets, it was a shock. We had opened the carpet we bought to let it air out, so now I can’t even return it, but it had to come back with me. We also thought the bathroom had been worked out before hand and were completely blindsided by this one as well.
If roommate had got an Ikea small futon (instead of a full size bed one), not added a thick, upholstered headboard (Ahh…furniture piece #14!), and not added things like that acrylic cart, her stuff would have fit very tightly on the extended side of the room. D had sketched it out. During move in, her roommate was texting her pictures saying, “It doesn’t work the way you sketched it” but in reality, when we got there, things did work one of the ways D had sketched the room.
