10 Tips for Decorating an Ole Miss Dorm Room

It’s understandable to feel intimidated and anxious over decorating your freshman’s dorm room at Ole Miss. The standards are set high as most of them look as though they were pulled from a page in Southern Living magazine (& some of them actually are!). Hopefully my tips, as an Ole Miss Mama myself, will lessen the stress so you can focus on what really matters - Game days in the Grove! I mean, of course, your child’s education 😉

To start, pay the dorm deposit ASAP! The sooner, the better since dorm selection priority is based on when the deposit is received. Here’s the link: Ole Miss Housing
Find a Roommate (OR DON’T) Talk to your child about their priorities. Do they care more about which dorm they live in or who they room with? The advantage of going solo is it’s often easy peasy to score a room in a coveted Contemporary Residential Hall or Pittman(sion) as the kids call it if they’re not bound to a roommate. In contrast, if they want the security of getting to know their future roomie prior to dorm selection, the kids usually find each other on Instagram. Reminiscent of my experience with online dating, the kids put photos and bio information together and pay someone to post on a popular Ole Miss Class of 202X page. Then, they scroll and DM kids who look like they might be a good match. My daughter found her current roommate and bestie this way. As for me, I’m still swiping 🐝
You/your student should scour Pinterest to pick a theme/color scheme/vibe so you have inspo and a starting point for your shopping. That’s how you likely found me here, after all! Pinterest Boards
Hit up all the resales & buy hand me downs, as able. There are many Facebook pages online for parents of Ole Miss Students and many of them are for selling items. Here are a few:
Ole Miss Buy and Sell
Parents of Ole Miss Students Marketplace
Ole Miss Parents Chat Group - Open Discussion
Once your child receives their dorm placement, be sure to join their dorm’s FB page - as an example Crosby Parents Ole Miss
Temper your (& your student’s expectations). We paid the dorm deposit in mid-September and received a dorm portal assignment on Day 3. Do NOT buy dorm specific furniture until assignment unless you don’t mind returning/reselling/blowing money. (Get used to the blowing money part though. Oxford ain’t cheap) Anyway, by Day 3, all of the contemporary dorms and Martin (for girls were full). My daughter and her new bestie ended up on the 5th floor of CRUSTY 🤣 Crosby. While they have a laundry list of reasons to hate their living arrangements I’m telling you, they LOVE it!
While we purchased a used center cabinet ($500) and headboards ($200), the rest was new. Here are links for my girl’s dorm furnishings:
Wayfair Rug - buy the 9x12
Amazon Dorm Room List This link consists of all the stuff I bought for Lanie’s room. I’m going to continue to add to it with extras and good ideas. This is an affiliate link- thank you for supporting an Ole Miss Mama.
Buy from small businesses and crafters, when able. Etsy has some great decor idea and printable items like these:
Etsy Link
On the FB pages, we found a woman who sews the custom skirts for the desks. You really can’t buy them anywhere else and these fit perfectly and attached easily with velcro she provided.
Regarding the Amazon list, buy the blue bags to move. They’re amazing. Buy more Command Strips than you think you’ll need. The mop holders worked to put the curtains up, but they’ve fallen and been replaced multiple times. Buy the nice mattress topper (get a thick one). My daughter loves her dorm bed because of this. Resist the urge to splurge on linens. Buy cheap sheets, towels, and bedding. They all get trashed! Buy a good air purifier like the one on my Amazon list and replacement filters. Set a calendar reminder to change the filter monthly. They get filthy, which I suppose means they’re working. Our girls stayed very healthy first semester which is NOT the norm. The air purifier had to have helped some.
We bought the gold cart at Pottery Barn Teen. The personalized blankets are from BaubleBar. They HYDR (Hell Yeah Damn Right) gold letters came from Hobby Lobby. They’re heavy and we used a lot of Command Strips to keep them up. Shop local in Oxford for some of the decor. I’m a big fan of Olive Juice Gifts That’s where the cute Reb and Oxford pillows came from.
Spread out the expense over several months. I’ll post more later, but I gifted a lot of room decor and dorm necessities to my daughter throughout her Senior Year of High School. I used Valentine’s Day, Easter, and her birthday as opportunities to surprise her with stuff she needed for college. It was fun for me, practical, and she loved it!