The College Dorm Collage
There’s not much room for error in furnishing a dorm room. Furniture has to be space- and cost-effective. Twin sheets have to be big enough to fit extra long mattresses. And bulky nonessentials are usually booted out before Thanksgiving.
Kevon Saber knows all of this ... now. He didn’t in 1998 when he was a freshman finance and economics major at Santa Clara University. Instead of shopping smart, he ran around to a dozen stores, grabbing too much of the wrong stuff. He hauled in furniture that was too big for the cramped 15-by-12-foot room he shared with another student. And he bought hot-burning halogen lamps and candles, then found the potential fire-starters are banned from on-campus housing.
Seeing others struggled as he had taught Saber, 22, that there had to be a better way, so he and three other dorm-dwellers who graduated in May, launched AllDorm Inc., a mail-order company based near their alma mater that caterers to students living on 3,500 campuses across the country.
Lots of stores sell dorm accessories, from sheets that fit 36-by-80-inch-long mattresses to designer trash cans, but AllDorm Web site visitors find such student-tested products as the Crouton and the Scrawlwall. The Crouton is a hybrid of a couch and a futon that can fit under a loft bed. At 5-feet long, three people can cozy up on top of it and underneath the cushions is enough storage space to hold about 110-pounds of dirty laundry or 200 VHS tapes. The frame is made of rigid polypropylene (“because we know students will kick it,†says Saber) and upholstered in a washable (“because students will spill drinks on themâ€) velour-like fabric known as velboa that comes in blue, black and black-and-white zebra print (“just becauseâ€). It sells for $99 plus $20 shipping.
The Scrawlwall is a dry-erase message board that clings to a surface without damaging paint--a dorm room no-no that results in a fine at the end of the school year. It’s a paper-thin sheet of plastic that, when unrolled, is crackling with static electricity, which allows it to stick to walls or doors, and peel off without a trace. The board ($15) is 40 inches by 26 inches, leaving plenty of room for visitors to leave their mark. The Scrawlwall, like other AllDorm products, has changed over time. “We used to make it longer but we found in talking to students that they don’t write below their waistline so we made it shorter,†says Saber.
Because lugging possessions to the dorm can be the worst part of the adventure, the company ships directly to dorm rooms and adheres to each campus’ label guidelines (some want the packages’ contents listed on the outside, among other requirements). This prevents the boxes from being rejected and returned before the student receives them.
For more information, call (866) 255-3676; www.alldorm.com.
Here’s an idea for a dormmate who foolishly enrolled in an 8 a.m. class on Mondays: Instead of the typical alarm clock that rattles everyone in the room, the ShakeAwake can be placed in a pillowcase and intense pulsating vibrations, not sound, roust the sleeper. The plastic device was originally designed for those who are hearing impaired but it has been embraced by others who share space but not the same schedules. About the size of a deck of playing cards, it’s powered by two AA batteries. A 1-inch LCD display gives the time and a backlight allows for nighttime viewing. A snooze button grants a few extra minutes of dream time and a switch can convert the clock to an audible alarm. AllDorm and other companies sell it for $25. For more information, www.shakeawake.com.
You can’t avoid back-to-school displays in department, bed-and-bath and discount stores through mid-September, but you can escape bland hues. Target hired Todd Oldham this season to dress up mundane staples with a color palette the fashion designer named “Geek Blue,†“Go Away Green†and “Cheerleader Red.†One item, a 21 1/2-inch-high metal wire laundry basket that rolls on coasters ($17), has a removable cotton canvas liner with a multicolored star-pattern. For more information, www.target.com.
Not that it’s on students’ shopping lists, but it’s tough making furniture for dorm rooms. Housing officials expect beds and desks to last for 20 years, parents want to be impressed by their look when they first inspect the rooms and students don’t want to get into trouble for damaging them. Enter Ecologic Inc., one of a dozen companies that specializes in providing for the $125-million on-campus housing market.
The Waukegan, Ill.-based company makes furniture from recycled milk jugs and other plastics, and desktops of pressurized newspaper and soy that look like granite. “You can take a sledgehammer or a switchblade to it, and use acetone to remove pen marks and it will still look good,†says Ecologic President Stephen Lee, whose products were recently installed in San Jose State’s 12-story dorm. The part that students care about: Beds can be raised up to 6-feet high to create a loft-like sleeping area with floor space underneath for a desk or storage. For more information, (800) 899-8004; www. ecoinc.com.
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Janet Eastman can be reached at [email protected].
