English junior Liza Polaskey and anthropology senior Jennifer Savage pose in their Landon Hall dorm room. They painted and wrote poetry on the walls and lofts and added posters and African decorations.
The State News caught up with English junior Liza Polaskey and anthropology senior Jennifer Savage, roommates in Landon Hall who like to break all the rules. The roomies painted the walls in their dorm room and wrote on them with Sharpie markers. They also incorporated African decorations and thrift-store style for a look unlike anyone else’s abode.
The State News How would you describe your room?
Jennifer Savage Amazing. We painted the walls, so that was pretty cool. We have a lot of poetry written all over. My favorite poem is Kubla Khan. We inscribed that on the walls. We kind of have this strange exotic sort of Victorian-esque theme gong on. We painted inside the slant in the wall and have pillows and hang out in there, so it’s kind of a hangout area.
Liza Polaskey It’s kind of The Salvation Army meets Urban Outfitters meets Dead Poets Society. It’s very eclectic.
SN You painted the walls of your dorm room. Won’t that get you in trouble?
JS We found out after we had already done it that it wasn’t allowed, so it’s too late now. We’ll have to prime it and paint over it; its going to be a hellacious project.
LP It’s going to be a chore, to say the least. But it’s our room. If we’re going to be painting it back, they can’t really do anything about that.
SN Where did you get your inspiration for your decorations?
JS It’s all Liza’s inspiration; she’s the crazy, creative one. Every time someone comes in they write something on the wall or on our wooden loft, like a song lyric or a peace sign.
LP I’m an English major so that’s where the poetry comes from. We have a huge crawl space and so we thought it’d be appropriate because it’s about a cave’s measurements to man and deep, romantic chasms.
SN Did you find inexpensive ways to decorate?
JS Definitely. We went to the Home Depot and got the cheap clearance paint. Last night, I got 80-cent spray paint at Meijer and started spray painting at 2 a.m. It’s definitely a cheap endeavor. We just threw an old comforter on the floor and stuff like that … No one seems to notice there’s stains over everything.
LP We would just go to Goodwill and buy tables for $2 and paint them, and make them really awesome. We would sometimes go to Urban Outfitters and see tables there for $50, and just go to Goodwill and paint something and people would come in and say it looks awesome, and when we said it was $2 they were shocked.
SN How long did it take to decorate?
JS It’s a project that will never end. It’s pleasure for both of us. We really like adding to it and it gives us something to do in between homework. The more we put up, the more leaves we scatter on the floor, the more quotes we write, the more pictures we hang of Edward Scissorhands, it’s more fun whenever people come over and see these strange things.
SN What’s your favorite part of your room?
JS The Edward Scissorhands hangings scattered throughout the room. I used up an entire cartridge of printer ink printing out photos just to scare Liza.
LP I really like this one table. It was originally just a boring table and we painted it black and put crossword puzzles on the top and we play Scrabble on it.
SN What’s the most unique part about your dorm?
JS Everything is quite unique. There are things written in the wall from the ’60s. In the hole (in the wall) where we’ve found paintings from the ’60s and lots of cigarette butts and a joint in there with a piece of paper on it from 1982. Last night I was painting here and saw something that said “Josh was here” from 1978.
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LP We have an African wall hanging. We also took blank CDs and wrote “welcome” in Swahili.
SN How did you decide to live in the dorms again?
JS We really enjoyed it last year, and there’s a certain kind of community. Plus we didn’t want to have to pay bills off campus.
LP It also looks like Hogwarts; I couldn’t pass that up.
SN What advice would you give someone who wants to decorate their dorm?
JS Painting the walls adds so much. Do it within the first week and just fake like you didn’t know you weren’t allowed to. Feigning like you don’t really know what you’re not supposed to do will get you pretty far.
LP Just go all out and don’t worry about how sucky it’s going to be to move out. It’s your home for however many months; there’s nothing worse than coming home after a long day of class or work to a stuffy dorm. It’s nice to know we have a unique place to go home to after hours.
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