When first-year students Madeline Wadsworth and Blair Tyson decided to attend TCU, they immediately started planning what their room would look like.
The high school friends and Houston natives said they began picking out fabrics and colors in February for their room in Milton Daniel Hall.
“Isn’t that crazy?” Wadsworth said, laughing about their early start. “We wanted [the room] to be very homey [so we would] not feel so homesick.”
Tyson agreed, saying the purples and creams in the duo’s room were a good fit.
“We wanted calm colors—something that wouldn’t give us a headache every time we came in. Something very clean looking,” she said.
In fact, Wadsworth said the décor in her dorm room is very similar to that of her room at home.
But the Milton Daniel room décor is not the only similarity to Wadsworth’s room in Houston. The women designed their first college dorm room with the help of Wadsworth’s mother, Mimi Wadsworth, an interior designer.
“I asked her for her help. She was more than willing to help and was really into it. She totally knew what we wanted,” Wadsworth said of her mother.
Tyson wasn’t at all opposed to Mimi Wadsworth helping decorate their room.
“We just would just pick out the fabric and say, ‘Here you go Mimi,'” Tyson said. “It was a little fun project for [Madeline’s] mom. She was happy to do it.”
When move-in day came, Wadsworth and Tyson had everything ready to put in their new home for the school year.
“We were those girls moving in that when people walked by they would be like, ‘How’s all of it gonna fit?’” Tyson said.
Ultimately, everything fit just fine but situating everything in the room to their liking took a while, Wadsworth said.
“I’m sure the people next door hate us,” she said. “We were hammering for hours.”
Looking back, Tyson and Wadsworth are happy they spent February through August planning their room’s cozy appearance.
“We noticed that we were more comfortable really fast,” Tyson said. “During rush and stuff we walked around and would be like ‘Oh, can’t wait to go home.’ People would just stare at us and say ‘Really? We’ve been [at school] for 48 hours.’”
Eight weeks into the semester, the friends are settled and used to their surroundings, but when people visit for the first time, they are sometimes surprised by the room’s appearance, Wadsworth said.
“It’s not so much they say anything. It’s the look on their faces, but it’s not for other people. It’s definitely for us,” she said. “We just don’t want to feel like we’re homesick and stuck in a dorm.”
Those wanting to recreate the look of Tyson and Wadsworth’s dorm room can view the slideshow of items above.