I moved into my new university house nearly 3 weeks ago, term started last week and it's been a utter whirlwind so far. Unfortunately our WiFi was delayed in getting set up (thanks Virgin) so I spent two weeks without any internet, apart from a few hours sitting in the library on campus. Until I couldn't use it I really hadn't realised how much I rely on the internet for literally everything I do, from boring stuff like checking emails to planning how to get from A to B (as I'm still getting to know Brighton and the bus routes). But it was finally installed last week so I thought it was time for a room tour!

The house itself is a three-storey townhouse in a residential part of Brighton, and it's kind of an average between my two previous student houses - it's more modern than my house last year but definitely not as pristine as the place I lived in my second year. Unlike in previous years I didn't have any say in my choice of room as I joined this group after someone dropped out and they had already decided who was having which room. Nevertheless I'm really pleased with mine (I think it's actually the best of the lot!) and I think I've managed to make it my own quite easily. If you've read my previous room tour posts you might recognise some things because it's basically all the same stuff just in a different space!

This is what you see as you come in the door. I'm lucky that there's a great amount of storage, both in the form of two wardrobes and those shelves which are kind of the centrepiece of the room. Having said that I'm unlucky that one of the wardrobes has the boiler in it, but there's still room for a suitcase and my coats and jackets in that side - and I'm just about getting used to the noise it makes every time someone runs a tap!

None of the bedrooms have any kind of open storage like this, which is why I personally think it's the best room. I love displaying my knick-knacks and photos and things and it's also really practical for things like books and DVDs. The top two shelves are basically just for display, the next one down is my hair and makeup station, and below that is just general storage with shoes right at the bottom. Of course I stuck some fairy lights to the top shelf and I also have some fake tealights which look really atmospheric when the lights are dimmed.

I really love my bed area, which is where I decided to put my photo wall this time around. My room has picture rails running all around it which I took advantage of and got some picture hooks to put another set of fairy lights up, as they kept falling down with just bluetack. As this is the longest wall I thought it was the best place for my map print bunting and I think the overall effect is lovely.

My desk area is less fabulous, mostly due to all the cables which are inevitably in view underneath. However on the plus side I do have two desks for some reason (which none of the other rooms do) so I have my monitor on one with my printer under it, and my laptop and stuff I use every day on the other. Up on the wall I have my usual world map poster (once a geographer, always a geographer), my Durham tube map, some postcards and along the picture rail is another string of photos which are also fairy lights.

For some reason my room also has a tiny sink, which is kind of weird and unnecessary and I haven't used but I suppose it's there if I wanted to. Above it I have a celestial chart poster, which is a new addition to my university decor.

And that's my room for this year! I think it's really cosy and it's a great space for working in too - what more could you need from a university bedroom?

A couple of weeks ago I moved back up to Durham and into my new student house for my third year of university, so I thought it was about time for a tour. The intervening days have been extremely hectic, what with unpacking, sorting out my room and generally getting used to living in a new space. Then a week after I arrived my best friend came over to visit for a few days so we spent some time sight-seeing around Durham and Newcastle, and now all of a sudden I'm mid-way through my first week of lectures! How on earth did that happen... This year is going to go so quickly!

Anyway. Onto the tour. The new house is only about a 3 minute walk from where I lived last year so I was able to transfer quite a lot of stuff to the new house in June, which was handy as it limited the amount of stuff I needed to bring back up north with me (although we did basically have a full car which is kind of worrying in terms of bringing it all back again at the end of the year... But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it).

The house itself is much older than the place I lived in last year, and it's more of a traditional family home type of house with three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and a bedroom, living room and kitchen downstairs. My room is one of the double rooms so it's quite a bit bigger than a couple of the others which is great because I rarely go to the library and tend to spend a lot of time working in my room instead.

My desk area is one of my favourite parts of the room, it's so well-designed with the desk in the alcove part of the wall and the shelves above it. On the shelves I have some files, books and DVDs, and then some decorative bits and bobs like candles, polaroid pictures and my camera. I've also stuck some cool photos and postcards up on the wall under the shelves which I'm planning to add more to.

A new feature of my room is the monitor screen which I got recently and have looked up to my laptop via an HDMI cable. When I did an internship over the summer I had a similar set up and it quite literally revolutionised my life as you can drag and drop things between screens and basically multitask, so I wanted to try and replicate it this year at uni - so far it's great, I can watch YouTube in one screen and actually be productive in the other but I'm hoping it will be more useful for uni work as I'll be able to view readings more easily and take notes at the same time.

Apart from that my desk just has the standard stuff: pin board (which I've yet to pin anything to), pots of pens and highlighters, and an organiser for papers - plus of course my world map poster because geography is life. Down on the floor is my printer, which is essential.

My bed is also one of my favourite parts, mostly because of the fairy lights and my photo/light arrangement which I have up on the wall above the bed. I got the photo lights at a bargain store for about a fiver and I LOVE them, and I have another plain set wrapped around the bed frame. And of course, my geography bunting is up because you can never have enough maps around!

I have massive amounts of storage in my room which is so useful but to be honest most of the wardrobe space is empty at the moment because I also have a chest of drawers which has the majority of my clothes in. It also serves as a sort of dressing table since I have my makeup, jewellery and hair stuff on it. Above it I have my 'Durham tube map' that I got from Etsy which is the coolest thing ever.

Luckily my window is huge so it lets in a lot of light, and the view is just some trees so it's very calming to look out of. The windowsill is also a handy spot for displaying my framed photos and a plant, and I put my fluffy pink fairy lights up to add a bit more colour (even though they no longer work because the batteries exploded, but they still look cute).

And that's my room! I think I've made it my own as much as I can and I'm really happy with the result. Here's to living here for the next 9 months!

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My room is hands down my favourite thing about my second year at uni so far so of course I had to do a room tour to show it to you, especially now I've more or less finished the decorating process. Compared to my tiny little room in college last year (see my room tour for that here) it's a real luxury as it has actual space and a double bed, so I've tried to do it justice with my little decorative bits and bobs and, of course, photos galore.

This is the view from the doorway as you walk in, I think it's really attractive and welcoming with plenty of colour. The furniture provided was just a bed, desk, desk chair and the huge wardrobe in the back so as you can see I've added to it - I got a rug, a little bookcase and a bedside table which you'll see in the other pics.

This is my little desk area. Unfortunately the desk is pretty small, way smaller than the one I had last year which could fit my printer on it comfortably and had plenty of room left over for me to spread out all my books and papers - hence why my printer is on the floor. I've got my world map on the wall for when I need that geographical inspiration, and when my command strips arrive in the post I'm planning to put my pinboard on the wall too. 

At the moment I just have some essential bits and bobs on my desk, like some pots of pens, a desk light and and a file organiser. I think it's going to be essential to keep the space clear as much as possible, given there's so little of it!

Now we move over to my bed area, where I've got a little bedside table unit from IKEA and a lamp from Argos (which was super cheap! Around £3 I think). The windowsill is where I'm keeping my framed photos and also makeup as there's a handy full-length mirror just out of shot. My duvet cover is from Primark, which is also where I got the matching throw!

The room had curtains up when I moved in but I decided to take them down and store them away as there's a blind anyway and they were sort of in the way. Of course this meant I had a random curtain pole to do something with, and I thought it was the perfect place to put my fluffy pink fairy lights up - plus the mirror is a handy spot to perch the battery pack.

Above my bed is my little photowall, which I'm hoping to add to this year! I was originally going to do a washing line display with string and mini pegs but I thought this simple arrangement looked much more clean and effective.

I decided to buy this little bookcase as there wasn't much in the way of what I call display shelving (i.e. places to put books and decorative bits) and it was only £20 from Argos, which I think is well worth it even if I can't take it home with me at the end of the year. I decided to get it in black so it would match the desk because coordinated furniture pleases me immensely. So far I've just got a few books and DVDs, some tech bits, folders and some photos on the top.

Finally here's the huge wardrobe which is basically the width of the whole room! There's SO much storage space in here which is excellent because I can just cram all sorts of stuff in there and pull the door across to hide it.

To create more small shelves I bought this blue hanging thing from IKEA which is basically where I'm keeping all my clothes. Underwear, tights and pyjamas are in the drawers on the right and I've got the middle shelf set up as a sort of dressing table area with jewellery and some more makeup. Then shoes are on the floor in the wardrobe, cardigans are hanging in the narrow bit above my laundry bag, and dresses, skirts and coats are in the other half of the wardrobe which is a mirror image of the side you can see.

And that's my room! I really love it, I think I've made it my own without spending too much or making any huge/irreversible changes which would lose me my deposit. I'm looking forward to living here for the next year!

A new academic year is just around the corner and for me that means living in a student house instead of in college (aka halls) and also the extremely exciting opportunity to decorate my new bedroom. I did my best to make my room in college pretty and personal by putting up posters, photos and fairy lights but given that it was so small and had a lot of storage and shelving built in there was only so much I could do, whereas my new room is a lot bigger and barer so it's a real blank canvas.

It's been a long process of gradually buying bits and pieces and trying to bring it all together coherently (and it's a process which is still ongoing since I have a whole load of stuff at home than I'm going to take with me when I go) so I thought I would put together a post on how to decorate a uni bedroom to impart my wisdom and generally explain how I've been going about it. A lot of this can be applied to any bedroom but I'm focusing on a university room which assumes there is some basic furniture provided (i.e. a bed, desk and wardrobe) and that you have limited scope when it comes to how much you're allowed to do to it (i.e. no painting or major adjustments). The emphasis is on how to do it on a budget because lets face it, your student loan has to cover other things like food and ridiculously expensive textbooks. Also, this isn't a room tour because I'm not in my uni house at the moment but I'm definitely planning on doing one when I get there!

Get inspired. There's so much you can do to brighten up even the most drab uni bedroom and it definitely doesn't need to involve spending a fortune. Pintrest is ideal for providing visual inspiration for themes and colour schemes as well as ideas for DIYs so it's a great place to start looking - check out my 'bedroom' board, for example. Another place I often find inspiration is IKEA, particularly the showroom section where they have all the rooms set up because it helps to see ideas in the flesh and they're designed to make the best use of a small space. I also really like watching room/house tours on YouTube because I can do it without leaving my bed - as I mentioned in my summer favourites I've been loving Gabbie's (aka velvetgh0st) vlogs and videos and I really like her taste in homeware and the way she decorates her flat(s).

Plan it. If you're like me and you love shopping and homeware it's tempting to rush out and buy all sorts of stuff but it's so much more cost effective to sit down and really plan your room. Obviously it's helpful if you already know what the space looks like because you know what you've got to work with, but even if you haven't seen it there's a lot you can think about to start off with. The first thing to do is to decide if you want to have a particular theme or colour scheme because then you can have something to focus on while shopping. For my uni room I've decided to go with a dark pink, purple and turquoise colour scheme where possible, mostly because those are my favourite colours and also as it's relatively easy to find things in those colours - but I'm not sticking too it too rigidly. Theme-wise I've always thought it would be nice to do a sort of wanderlust thing as it would be quite easy to achieve: think maps on the wall, travel photos displayed, unfinished wood decorations and vintage-effect storage boxes.

Budget. There's no point spending a fortune on luxury furniture or decorative items if you're only living there for a year, so buy stuff that can be used again at some point in your life or that it won't matter too much if you have to leave behind. It's important to balance the potential cost with how committed you are to making your room look a particular way.

Make a shopping list. To start off with decide what you need aka things that are actually necessities. Some basic items which I think are essential for every bedroom include bed linen (duh), a desk lamp, storage boxes and a small bin/wastepaper basket. Once you have these essentials it's time to start thinking about things you want, by which I mean decorative items such as photo frames, ornaments and posters because it's all about achieving a balance between practicality and aesthetics.

Use what you have. Even if you don't hoard everything away 'just in case' *ahem* you've probably got some stuff which could be upcycled, repurposed or just plain borrowed. Odd sets of Christmas lights that aren't used all year round can become a set of fairy lights would around a curtain pole or draped over a wardrobe, while anything can be brightened up and given a new lease of life with a lick of paint including furniture and storage boxes. For instance, I'm planning to paint a wooden box that my grandad made for my mum's bedroom when she was little and use it as a bedside table! It's worth asking around to see what family and friends are hoarding away and would part with because you never know what you might find.

Buy from the right places. This goes hand in hand with budgeting, but do your research into where you can get the things you want for the price you want. I've found that Argos's ColourMatch range is brightly coloured and brilliant value for everything from rugs to lamps; Primark Home can be great for bright and fun duvet covers, quirky ornaments and little sets of fairy lights; and lets be real, IKEA is always a good idea, especially for furniture and storage solutions. Plus, don't discount places like Wilko and Poundland for basic things like cushions, and charity shops or car boot sales for unique vintage items with extra thrift factor.

Be creative. It's so easy to add a personal touch to a room with minimal cost and maximal effect. My number one tip is to print out photos! I do this using photo printing websites (Photobox and Lalalab are my favourites) but you can do it at home too providing you have photo paper and permission to use all of the printer ink. Then the possibilities are endless: frame them, use blu-tak to create a photowall, arrange them in a pattern, or use string and pegs (these ones are an ideal size) to make a 'washing-line' of snaps to a wall. You could also create a display wall or pinboard of things that inspire you, a sort of collage of prints, posters, photos, postcards, magazine pages - anything that will make an impact. If blu-tak isn't strong enough an alternative is command strips (which I am fully intending to buy because it actually says I can use them in my house contract so I'll blame it on that if they take the paint off, but hopefully they won't).

And that's it! Maybe all this stuff is completely obvious but I just really love decorating things and making my bedroom look nice - I hope someone found it helpful!

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Last week was one of the busiest of my life. I moved country, got settled into my accommodation and went to all sorts of events during Fresher's Week at my university. It's been tiring and a lot of fun and it's weird to think that this coming week will be the official start of lectures!

Today I thought I'd share some photos of my room because I'm really quite happy with the way it looks after I decorated it. It's compact but there's an awful lot of storage - to the point where I still have some empty shelves - but that's great because I'm sure I'll acquire more stuff. There are two sections - the main room part with my bed and desk, and the 'dressing area' with the sink and wardrobe which I'll show you at the end.

This is my bed area. Please note my awesome pink feathery fairy lights and the snazzy map of the world (I am studying geography after all).

This table/unit has ended up with my clock and some photos on it, as well as my hair stuff (straighteners are actually on my desk). Ideally I'd keep them in the sink part but there aren't any plug sockets there so I can't plug them in, and apparently the smoke detectors are really sensitive so I'm trying to get as far away as possible from mine in order to use heat protectant spray.

On the shelves below I have health/medical stuff in the black box, random things in the basket and cables in the blue box. The bottom shelf is my shoes overflow, plus squash because it's essential.

Woo lighting. These are the shelves next to my bed - I've decided this is where stuff like my books and blanks is going to live, for convenience.

This shelf above the poster is rapidly turning into my food shelf - I've got a few provisions for if I ever miss dinner or feel really hungry during the day or night. 

I realised I had nowhere to put my jewellery, so I got the black hanger thing and hung it on a hook that I stuck on the wall and it seems to be working well so far.

This end of my desk is where all the important things are ending up - piles of papers and stationery (ft. horrible curtains).

The wall you can't seen in any of the photos is quite big so I've stuck these posters on it. I've got the Van Gough exploding TARDIS and one about Shakespearean tragedies that I ended up getting free from the National Theatre.

Here are my clothes - I was surprised that there's actually quite a lot of space for clothes (hard to photograph it all!), and of course I filled most of it instantly.

Recently I was casually browsing the Urban Outfitters website (read: procrastinating revision) and I got completely sucked into their 'apartment' section and particularly the decor. I know the majority of it is overpriced and I could probably achieve the same effect myself with a little DIY, or find similar items for much cheaper at vintage markets - but I can't help my inner tumblr girl loving every bit of it.

I do still really like the way my room is decorated at the moment (it's white and dark pink with white furniture), but I did it back when I was 12 or 13 so I think if I could completely redecorate it now I would probably do it very differently. One day I'd like to live in a space with whitewashed exposed brick and wood floors, just very simple and clean with pops of colour - so with that in mind, here are my top picks from the decor section:

 Travel Scratch Map, $24

I saw this in the Urban Outfitters store here in Belgium a while ago and desperately wanted one, but when I made myself think practically I realised I don't actually have any spare wall space in my room, since I have built in cupboards, shelves, sloping ceilings etc. But my room at uni will be another story, so I may well pick up one of these this summer before I go.

Magical Thinking Menageri Medallion Tapestry $49

This screams hippie chic tumblr like nothing else but I love it. Purple is my favourite colour and as you may have seen in this post, I've recently discovered a liking for orange so colour-scheme wise this is beyond perfect.

Macaron Box $10

Are these not the most precious, beautifully pastel and iridescent but also massively overpriced little boxes you've ever seen? They're the trinket boxes to trump all trinket boxes and I want all of the colours.

Invisible Book Shelf $16

These are so simple but would look really cool with the right books against the right background. I've actually acquired a lot of bigger, non-fiction books lately so these would be ideal for displaying them. 

Painted Woodblock Wall Shelf $49

I really, really love this. It's so artsy and chic I just can't get over it! The colours of the drawers are subtle but make it look really interesting and thrify, especially with the different drawer knobs. I imagine this is the kind of thing to have in your hallway to hang coats and accessories on, but it would work just as well in a bedroom.

Reclaimed Wood Chalkboard $49

This is similar in style to the previous item but I love the chalkboard element - so useful for writing messages and to-do lists on. The overall vibe is so zen, even though it looks like it's been taken right out of a 1940s schoolroom. 

Magical Thinking Pyramid Shelf $129

Velvet and tassels are all I need in a cushion. I'm picturing a couple of these, perhaps in purple and blue too, all spread out on a sofa in front of the tapestry I talked about above - the perfect zen den.

Magical Thinking Una Curtain $49

There's something witchy about these curtains and I am all about it. The pattern also looks a little bit like a cross between constellations and a kind of geometric print, which I think works surprisingly well.

So that is what I would buy from Urban Outfitters if I had an empty room to furnish and at least $450 to spare, not to mention the cost of actual furniture like tables and chairs and a bed. But never say never, since maybe when I get my own place I'll be able to create my dream space!

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