(upbeat, energetic music) - (gasping) oh my god, that's so cute! - hello! we are on our way to charlotte's dorm to check out her space and see if we can give her an awesome makeover. charlotte just started school, she's a freshman, her roomis pretty basic right now, we're gonna see what we can do.
let's go. hi charlotte! this is charlotte's dorm room! (enthusiastic music) so this is your roommate's side over here. - yeah. so we're not gonna touch this side, we're just gonna do charlotte's side. - i like, like, dim lighting, like
i don't like overhead lights. - just cozy.- cozy. - i love plants. like, so much, as you can see. - [steph] yeah, i cansee all sorts over there. - um, and i like to put stuff on my walls, but i have not bought anything. (laughs) to put on my wall yet.
- [steph] we can fix that!(both laughing) awesome! i think we have everything we need! so, we're gonna go figure out how we can upgrade your dorm room! - sweet! i'm so excited. - yay! (popping)
(ringing) - the first diy that i'mgonna make is a lap desk. this way she can workwhile she's on her bed, or on the couch. the things that i'm using for this are a picture frame, a pillow,and some pretty, soft fabric. the first thing we're gonna do is take this thing out of this frame. i have wrapping paper,you can use anything.
you can use a photo, youcan use a piece of fabric, i'm just gonna use this, andstick it right in the frame. (cheerful music) time to cut up my pillow. i'm just using a regular old pillow, just one that i probably wouldhave thrown away otherwise. i'm just gonna draw a line,so i know where to cut it. fold it closed. safety pin it shut!
i'm gonna take my fabric! i'm just going to lay it right on top. try and get it as centered as possible, and shove all of myfabric into the middle. remember, this thing, that wegot rid of, we need it again. just kind of, situate your fabric in whatever way makes the most sense. top it off with this guy. you're gonna pull all thefabric back out the edges.
throw that guy on top. you just kind of wrap thefabric around the inner frame, and then push the little pins down so that it holds the frame in place. all right, i haveroughly rolled the edges, now i'm just gonna gluethem down with hot glue. okay, i got all the cornerstucked in, nice and pretty. i think this is done. so now she can just puther laptop right on here,
set it on her lap whileshe's sitting in bed or wherever she is, and justhave a nice, little cozy table. desk. thing. one thing that is super easy to diy and great for anyonewho is feeling homesick, like most collegestudents, is to make a map of your hometown, or your home state, or your home country,or wherever you're from.
and draw it out usingmaterials from that place. for charlotte, i'm using dirt from oregon. and it's so easy, i'm just drawing it out with some glue, i'm dumping some dirt on top of it that i got from oregon, and then you just wait a little while for it to dry, you pop itin a frame, and it's done. and i think it looks socute, it's a really cool little piece of art that willalways remind you of home,
and i really thinkcharlotte's gonna love it. okay, for this next diy i'm going to make a neon sign, totally diy, super cheap and affordable, and it'sgonna look super cute. so, the first thing youdo when you're making a neon sign, is drawwhatever you want it to say. the easiest thing to do isto write something in cursive because it all connects andyou can connect the wires together, and it'll flow beautifully.
okay, so once you haveyour word drawn out, you're gonna take a piece of string, doesn't matter what it looks like, you're gonna throw itaway when you're done. and this is so you canmeasure out the length of wire that you're going to need. so i'm going to measure that out and make sure i have enough. and i'm also going to make sure
that i have enough el wire, which is what i'm gonna beusing for the neon light. you can get it online inpretty much any color, and i got this for $8, so.(cash register) can't get better than that. i'm using this wire, igot it in the same color as my light, or at least a similar color. you wanna get a wire that is pretty stiff, but you can still bend it with your hand.
okay, now that i havea rough shape bent out in my wire, i'm goingto use some superglue and glue it all together sothat it doesn't fall apart. and now that i have a significant amount of superglue on all ofmy fingers, it's done! let's see how this looksin charlotte's dorm. we are in charlotte's dorm room. got a lot of work to do. i'm here with addy, charlotte's sister.
let's get to work. let's start with the desk. the desk is kind of thefocal point of the room, it's where charlotte is gonna do all of her schoolwork, spend most of her time. one super easy way to kindof spice up your desk, is to put a piece of prettyfabric over your bulletin board, because you can still pinthings through a fabric, it's just gonna lookway prettier than cork.
i also wanted to kind of give her a theme to go with her warm colors,bring the whole room together. so for an accent color i chosegold, it goes really well with warm colors, likereds and pinks and purples. and that's what's gonna be what all of her accessories are on her desk. planner. everybody needs a planner. (record scratching)
it's so scary. like, little floppy skeleton. bookends are a really cute way to hold all your books together, since you do have a ton of textbooks in college. and you'd be surprisedhow many nice bookends you can find in a thriftstore for like, two bucks. also, if you have a lot of random junk juts kind of laying around everywhere,
get yourself some baskets. a couple of cute baskets on your desk where you can just throw all of your shit into and not even worry about it, is gonna make your roomlook so much nicer, even if inside of those baskets is a mess. out of sight out of mind. shelf risers are awesome, they're amazing. i love them.
the one i put in charlotte's room i found at a discount store, super affordable, and it adds a whole new layer of shelving. it's amazing. especially if you have tons of room above your desk that goes nowhere and there's just wasted space. get yourself some shelvesor some shelf risers. it will change your life.
charlotte said she wanted her room to feel warm, and cozy, she wanted some ambiance, so i got her some twinkle lights, i think that is the best, and easiest way to make your room feel cozy, so you don't have these harsh overheadlights everywhere. i love the ones that arelike, a curtain of lights, that's what i got for her, and i'm gonna put them behind her bed as ifit's kinda like a headboard.
you can also do the sameeffect with a tapestry, or a big piece of art, but i think hanging something big like that behind your bed is a really cool way tokind of create the illusion that you have a cool headboard? when really, you don't. (addy sighs)(laughing) (steph and addy laughing) - addy!
- okay, okay, we'll get there. we'll figure it out. since charlotte has a lot of photos of her friends, and her family, and is probably feelinga little bit homesick here in new york, farfar away from oregon, i felt like having a corkboardwasn't quite enough space to display all of these photographs. so i also got her this metal grid thing.
it's kind of like a very modern corkboard that i've seen kind of trending on pinterest and everywhere these days. but it looks super cool, i'm hanging it up on her closet, because there's not really anything going on there. and she can just clip on papers, or photos with little safety pins andit will look so much better than like, taping themto the wall or something.
charlotte has a great bedspread. i'm so happy i didn'thave to go out and buy her a new one, because theone she has is awesome. but when i walked in there,she had it covered up! it was covered up with aboring, plain, white blanket! what're you doing you're killing me. - i don't think i'veever seen this bed made. - we don't want to coverthat up, we want to see it. so i'm taking it off, throwing it away,
revealing this beautifulbedspread that she has, and everything else isgonna match this bed. so i got her some nice orange pillowcases to replace her boring white ones, and they match the accents in the bedspread. charlotte has this huge, beautiful window looking out onto new york city, it's so nice, but it is drab. it's got these horrible blinds,
so we're gonna hang upsome really cute curtains that i got from a thrift store. you can also just usea sheet, or just some cheap fabric, it doesn'teven have to be a curtain, just drape it across andit'll do the same thing. one thing that charlotte said she really wanted were pillows. just, pillows everywhere. and since your dorm roomis your entire home,
you don't have a living room,you don't have any other space to hang out, whenyou have friends over, they're probably gonna sit on the bed. it's like your couch. it's probably more ofyour couch than your bed, so one way to create thateffect is to just get a bunch of pillows, linethem up against the wall and around the corner, so it creates this kind of couch effect whenyou're not sleeping in it.
and then just take themoff when you go to bed. two of these pillows imade out of old t-shirts that i probably wouldhave just thrown away if i didn't use them for this. same with the pillows,they were old and cheap and you can find them anywhere. or you can just use stuffing, you don't have to usea pillow, you can just, stuff it full of pillowstuffing, which is even cheaper.
but they're super easyto make, it's so nice to diy your own pillows, especially when you have a bunch of old t-shirts that you don't know what to do with. it really adds a nice piece of home there. and then the other ones i just picked up from thrift stores, from discount stores, from people who didn't want them anymore. pillows can be veryexpensive, but if you know
where to find them, it's so easy to get a cheap, nice pillow. when you're using a lot of pillows in a small space, it'sgood to have a nice variety of sizes, and textures, and colors. i got some that were fuzzy, some that were patterns, and that were solid. a bunch of different sizesto kind of mix it up a bit. now i already got the twinkle lights
to make this room a little bit cozier, but it still needs something else. so i really wanted toget her some candles, give her that niceambiance that she wants. but unfortunately, dormrooms don't allow you to have candles, or an open flame. or do anything fun. luckily, i was able to finda huge pack of flameless, electric, battery-operatedcandles on amazon.
so cheap, so affordable,you get a million of them. and honestly, they look pretty real. i also got her a bunch of fake plants because i know she lovesplants, but it is very hard to take care of plantsas a college student, especially when you don't havea lot of light in the room, or you may not be aroundvery often to water them. so i just got her ahandful of fake plants, some of them i got from the dollar store,
some of them i got from the thrift store, some of them i got on sale. i think the plantscombined with the dirt art of oregon really compliment each other in a way that i didn't even anticipate. it just brings a nice earthyatmosphere to the room. and i know she loves that, because it's very reminiscent of oregon. and her home.
and what she loves. and it's really gonna makethis room feel like home. when you're in collegeand you have a dorm room, with a roommate like charlotte, no matter how close youare with that person, they could be your best friend, you are gonna want some privacy. so for charlotte i'm creatinga big room divider for her. i think it's going to be really helpful,
but not super obtrusive,she can kind of tie it to the side if she doesn't want it. so what i'm using for thisis just a gigantic piece of fabric that i found on clearance. it was like $2 a yard, which is awesome. so i have six yards ofthis very wide fabric that i'm going to cutin half so that it is two three yard pieces,which should theoretically reach from the ceiling to the floor.
now what i'm gonna dowith this is just fold over one of the edges so thati can slip a rope or a string through it, and just glueit down with hot glue. and then just do the exact samething with the other piece, on the same piece of rope sothat it all connects together. and you can put togetheras many pieces of fabric that you want, you canjust match the colors, make it just a crazy, random curtain of different fabrics,do whatever you want.
and just keep adding curtains until your rope is as long as your wall. easy as pie. so now whenever charlotte and her roommate want some privacy, theycan just take the curtains, close it right in the middle of the room, and then they can open itback up when they're done. the easiest thing for this would be to use like a huge bed sheet
or something that's very large because even though it's a dorm room, it's still pretty big. i'm amazed! - [addy] no way. - and it's like, easy to slide. i think we're like, done. it's done, we have completed it. after so many hours of hard work,
it's time to show it to charlotte. this is my favorite part. move that bus! (charlotte laughing nervously)- i'm so stress-- (charlotte gasping)oh my god! that's so cute! oh my god. this is so much cozier than it was. (upbeat music)
that say "char?" - [steph] yeah! - that's so cute! (steph laughing) all of my little pictures. oh this is perfect too. because like, we're not allowed to have-- - [steph] yeah, i got you - some flameless candles.- [charlotte] candles in here.
oh my god the plants. - [steph] oh yeah, sothis, is a room divider. so if you want privacy... - what a smart idea.- you can do this. - this looks so nice. i love all the pillows. this is really cute. i love it. - this is a lap desk,so you can sit in bed
and like, put your laptop on it. and just put it on your lap. - oh my god! so i can put it on this side. it always burns me. it's so, i love it. looks so much better. ten times better. (clapping lightly)- yaay!
so happy you like it! i love the lights. that's such a cool idea. these are so cute. i like these boards. - [steph] i made this. out of dirt from oregon. - are you serious? that's so cool.
that's such a good idea. - [cameraman] little piece of home! - little piece of home.- [steph] yeah! - exactly. i love how much cozier it is. and i love all the pillows. i love all the lights, cuzi, don't like big lights, so it's so much, a nicer ambiance in here. and i love all the fabric, and um,
how much more organized the desk is. cuz i really had no, i hadlike nowhere to store anything. - [steph and cameraman] yaaay! - [steph] i'm so happy you like it. - yes, i really do. - yay. (laughing) - thank you so much, this was so fun. (content music)