Room size and Lofting

Alright. Your future dorm room at Clemson is 125 cubic feet, and that is small. Now if you’re put somewhere besides Lever, Burns, or Manning I can’t help you. However, if you are, then you’re in luck. First thing to understand is that you must cut this space in half. You now must adjust to living with another person. This most likely means you will have to part with some items in your room at home, they just won’t fit. To make this fun, buy new stuff. Now on move-in day you’ll show up with car loads and people will help carry it up to your room for you. Finally, once everything is unloaded into the room your first thought will be, “There is no way all of this is fitting in here.” Don’t worry, it will. It may take some time but it will.  Clothes is another tricky subject. The closets aren’t bad, but if you have an outfit for everyday of the year then you might want to think about bringing summer/fall clothes and then trading out summer and winter clothes over Fall break. Then bring heavy winter clothes after Thanksgiving and so on. Now they give you a desk with four selves, this is where I put pictures, books, etc. Then you have a vanity with five drawers where you will most likely put clothes. I suggest buying some sort of shelf structure to add more drawer space, but that’s just me. However, if you do, you need somewhere to put it. This brings me to another subject: lofting. Now I know some are scared because they fear of falling off, others don’t feel like crawling up to their bed every night, and I understand. BUT, loft. I’m not kidding. It opens up the room, adds space, and allows your bed not to be in the middle of the socializing space. Trust me on this. (You can loft in Clemson House too.) Now in our room we each have separate chairs under our lofts, with tables and lamps, and then have our TV on our fridge under the window. Others have put futons under one side and TV on the other, and so on. Any set up is fine, but lofting gives you a lot more options. One more thing, this doesn’t really have to do with space but make sure you have two serge protectors. There simple aren’t enough outlets in this place.

You would think that in one building, on one hall all the rooms would be the same size.  In Clemson House, they are not.  All the rooms are different sizes, shapes, and styles.  I personally live in a two-person suite, which means that I live with one other person and we have our own private bathroom.  However, there are also two-person and four-person apartments on our hall that have kitchens.  Whether or not there is a kitchen obviously affects the size of the room.  However, in Clemson House one style of room does not have a standard size.  All of the two-person suites are not the same. One thing that is the same for all the rooms is that you can loft the beds.  This can make effective use of a small space.  My roommate and I live in a particularly odd shaped room, which is smaller than most.  When we were planning out our room over the summer, we assumed we would be in a standard rectangle.  When we got here, we were surprised.  However, we lofted our beds, moved the furniture 5 times, and finally achieved our vision of a perfect room.  So, do not assume that all rooms are the same size and try to be flexible.  My room might not be what I expected, but I love it!