I moved in with three throw pillows too many and learned the rest the hard way. Here’s what I’d buy again, what I’d skip, and what nobody tells you about making a 12×14 box feel like a room. I still remember the first time I walked into my freshman dorm. The bed was against one…
I moved into a 10×12 dorm with cinderblock walls the color of skim milk and a floor that could only be described as “institutional oatmeal.” My first mistake was buying a bright coral comforter because it looked cute online. My second mistake was pairing it with a teal rug. The room didn’t look “eclectic.” It…
I still remember the first graduation party I ever “hosted” — my cousin Dana’s, in her parents’ split-level outside Albany. I had spent the entire Friday night before trying to tape a store-bought banner to a textured wall, and by the time the first guests arrived, half of it had peeled off and was hanging…
I still have a stack of my own graduation announcements in a box under my bed. I ordered 75, mailed maybe 40, and the rest have moved with me three times. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t have enough graduation announcement ideas. It was that every list I found gave me the same five: a…
I still remember the first graduation party I ever helped decorate. I was 24, broke, and volunteered to make the table centerpieces for my cousin’s high school graduation. I spent $80 at a craft store on foam, glitter, and those little plastic tassels — and every single centerpiece looked like it came from the same…
I still remember the sheer panic of my first grocery trip after moving into my first apartment. I had a cart, a vague sense of adulthood, and absolutely no clue what I was doing. I ended up with a pack of paper towels, a bag of frozen mangoes, and a box of Triscuits. That was…
I still remember the first graduation party I ever hosted. It was for my roommate Kayla, who’d just walked across the stage with a B.A. in psychology and a minor in stressing me out about whether we had enough ice. Our apartment was 650 square feet, our budget was roughly “whatever’s left after rent,” and…
I spent the first week of January staring at a blank wall in my living room. Not a metaphorical blank wall — an actual, completely empty wall where a gallery arrangement used to hang. I had taken everything down to “refresh” the space, got overwhelmed, and left it bare for eleven days. My partner started…
I still remember helping my cousin Maya move into her freshman dorm at a state school three hours from home. We had the car packed so tight that I was holding a lamp on my lap for the entire drive. And when we finally got there — third floor, no elevator, 90-degree August heat —…
I still remember the first time I walked into my freshman dorm. Beige cinder block walls, a mattress that felt like a wrapped-up park bench, and overhead lighting that made everyone look vaguely unwell. My roommate and I stood there holding our bags, looked at each other, and just said “okay.” Here’s the thing I…