Sarah Meyer: I love tropical weather. I love going on vacation to tropical places and I just wanted to kind of bring it to myself since I can’t be there all the time.

SN: Where did you get inspiration for the colors?

SM: I actually got them from a hotel that I stayed at in Florida. Last year, I went to my cousin’s wedding and we stayed in this really old hotel, and it was decorated kind of like old-Cuban style.

And so I got the colors from there. They were really bright, rich colors. And my landlord actually painted every wall for us, so we didn’t have to do any of the painting ourselves, which was really nice. All my curtains and my bedspread and everything were made by my mom.

SN: Does the rest of your house have a consistent theme?

SM: Yeah, pretty much. Our family room and our kitchen we decorated with pretty bright colors, fun colors and our basement is also tropical. We did a tiki hut down there and fun stuff down there, and then my roommates did their own thing for their rooms.

SN: What do your friends think of your room?

SM: Everybody loves my room, actually. Everybody that comes over is really impressed with what I did with it, because most kids don’t I guess, do this much with their room.

SN: How long did it take you to finish decorating?

SM: Not that long. I guess I had been planning it out in my head all last year because we signed our lease pretty early on last year.

SN: What is your favorite thing in your room?

SM: Probably my two dressers. They’re from the ’40s. They were my grandma’s dressers, and I’m just happy to have those now passed down from her.

SN: What decorating advice do you have for students?

SM: My advice would be to do it. And do as much as you can to make it your own space, because if you’re living in a room that doesn’t really reflect you, it’s not that exciting and it’s kind of bland. It’s where you’re going to spend a lot of your time, so go all out and make yourself comfortable in your own space.