This is part of a segment that I decided to start doing on my blog. Once a week or so, I'll do a post on items for dorm living. I'm obviously not an authority on what you should and shouldn't bring and I'd definitely recommend that you look at other people's college packing lists, but I just wanted to show some items (with pictures) that helped my friends and I when we were in the dorms. I'll start off each post with how this applies to Michigan State University and some of their dorm rules/items. I would definitely recommend that you shop around for these items. I just picked the links randomly, mostly from Target, Walmart, and Amazon, but I'm sure that if you searched, you could find them for even cheaper. Also, none of these are affiliate links.
Today, I'll start with items for organization/storage in the dorms! I'll write about a couple different dorms, since a lot of them are different, and if you have any questions about specific dorms, just comment below and I'll try to find out for you.
In Hubbard (North for sure, I think South as well) and Holmes: In terms of storage, the school provides you with a lot. There is a small "closet" with a pole for hanging clothes, and a shelf where you can store out-of-season clothes. They have a dresser with four large and deep drawers, and each of the desks have one drawer. They have a modular, stackable unit with two shelves and one drawer, which you can move around.
In Wonders: There's not as much storage here, in my opinion (then again, I never lived there. But my friend did and I was there almost every day second semester). They have a dresser with six drawers I believe, because they're not nearly as deep as the ones in Hubbard. They have the same closet, with the pole for hanging clothes. Their desks are much nicer, because they have four drawers on the side (kind of like the one pictured, except instead of the plain wood backing on top of the desk, it's a cork board). But they don't have the stackable shelves that Hubbard has.
Organization
This Sterilite 3-Drawer Medium Cart with wheels. Actually, I think my friend got this when her roommate left it behind but whatever. This is very tall, about as tall as the desks in Wonders (where she lived) and she stored her food and plates and stuff in it. The dorms provide a lot of storage space (in Hubbard we had a tall four-drawer dresser, as well as our desk and three stackable shelf things), but if you want to be more organized then this is perfect. And it has wheels!
This Sterilite 3-Drawer Desktop Unit. I actually had two of these (although neither of them were exactly the same as the one pictured... One only had two drawers with the flip top lid, and the other had three drawers but a flat lid). I used one of them to store my makeup (and actually, I wish that I had bought this one for that purpose) and I think I got it for ~$5 at Walmart (note, the link contains a set of 4 from Amazon). I set the other one on my desk and put my school supplies like pencils, sticky notes, tape, scissors, etc. in it. This isn't really all that necessary if you have something to organize them in the desks because Hubbard has a pretty nice drawer, but I like being able to open it and sort it.
I wish that I had this one for my storage supplies. I'm not usually that organized (I'm really messy unless I'm supposed to be studying or doing homework...) but when I get in a cleaning mode, I really like organizing. I think I'll buy this one before I go back in the fall, actually.
My friend had an ottoman like this one. I can't find a link, so I'll update with one, but I'm pretty sure I've seen them at Walmart and Meijer and Target. Pick one that lets you store stuff inside, and you can use it to store pretty much anything. My friend used it for extra clothes, and it provided a seat and also she used it to climb onto her bed. (Her bed wasn't lofted, but even so it stands about four feet high. Which isn't fun if you're short like us. I just put one of the University-provided wooden shelves under my bed and pulled it out to get on my bed at night, but her dorm (Wonders) didn't have them.
This. It's a Sterilite Stacking Basket, Size Small, but I can't find a link that matches. I bought a pack of three (in pink) from Target and used them to store my nail polish (the ones that I bought with me, anyways), and left the other two at home. I had another basket (Sterilite brand too, I think, that I bought at Walmart) that I stored in my drawer-dresser to organize food. It's also a nice way to keep things separate if you/your roommate don't want to share.
Some of these Hello Kitty buckets. I really love Hello Kitty, so yeah. Anyways, the price on Amazon is a total rip-off, because I ended up buying a lot of these from the dollar section at Target. These were awesome and useful. I used one for my makeup brushes, one for plasticware (so we didn't have forks and knives strewn across the room...), one for the makeup that I wore daily (since I had an 8AM and didn't want to be running around the room while my roommate slept).
I had a couple of things from the dollar store, too, that I took pictures of before I started setting up my dorm, so I'll probably update with those. You can see a couple of them in my dorm haul post, but I did buy more after that post, so I'll update later.
My next post will be food-related items for the dorm.
Hope this was helpful if you're starting to plan out checklists and moving lists! I know that I started thinking early and getting some boxes ready early, but I was still scrambling, last minute, on move in day. But here's some items that were useful to me and my friends, just to give you an idea if you happen to see them on sale!
`Rakuzen
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