wow. I think that is adorable!
@MotherOfDragons Thanks for the tip on zip ties. Totally have to add that to dorm mountain.
To my eyes, and I’m sure to my D and her peers, the featured room looks stuffy, studied and overdone. I can’t imagine it existing anywhere beyond southern schools, but then it is kind of nice to see that the US hasn’t become totally homogenized and that there are still plenty of cultural differences in various parts of the country, despite the malling of America.
Back eons ago when I was in college, the coolest room on my floor was decorated with an entire roll of black and red typewriter ribbon (remember that?) that had been unspooled and hung in loops from the ceiling. And many of us finished off our room decor by dragging back old upholstered chairs from the local Goodwill and draping them with some schmatte to cover the holes and worn spots. (That decorator mama would have had palpitations!)
We spent virtually nothing. But I think we liked the idea of breaking away from the environments we’d grown up in. Nobody wanted to recreate their bedroom from home or anything remotely similar. But then we pretty much lived in a couple of pairs of jeans and a few tees, and I suspect those U Miss girls have very different wardrobes.
BTW, those who want the look of a headboard without a construction project should check out this website–the vinyl decal faux headboards are adorable, and there are tons to choose from: https://wallsneedlove.com/
Looks like posters have enjoyed this thread. Talking about decor and class and such. No problem there. The title ‘Dorm Controversy’ is absolutely overblown. Much ado about nothing. The Slate write was speaking been tongue-in-cheek, I hope?
Well … Ole Miss is now on D’s prospective college list.
Saw this today and thought it pertinent to this thread as these sororities will be the living situations down the road for many of the girls of the rooms pictured on this thread. It’s such a departure from my and my kids’ college experiences that I find it culturally interesting.
http://www.southernliving.com/home-garden/decorating/sorority-houses?iid=newsletter-sl-08252016
^^ my D would love to live there though if she could. How expensive is to live in the sororities in general? Just curious.
It’s not just a southern thing. The fact that the sorority house of the chapter I chose to pledge on my campus actually looked like a castle was a big part of its appeal to the 17-year-old midwestern me in 1973. (Slightly less formal today, but comparable in this recent redo.) http://www.interiorplanning.com/portfolio/alpha-gamma-delta-sorority-house-university-of-illinois/
By the way, the grungy shared house I moved into two years later had a decidedly different “aesthetic.” (More flop house than castle.)
Cannot read 13 pgs of this. I am glad I have boys. They decorated in electronics
I didn’t get the “it’s a southern thing to have professional decorators - it’s the new norm.” Huh? Sorority houses are typically run by a house corporation board that manages the finances. The students aren’t running off to Home Goods to buy sofas for the living room - an adult does that, typically one with interior decorator experience who can ensure things coordinate, get better prices through a merchandise mart, know which fabrics will stand up best to frequent use, keep a record as to when things need replacing, etc. I agree the looks aren’t as grand as what is shown here but they are still professional decorators picking things and overseeing installation and maintenance.
But this is why you can never answer the q “how much does it cost to join a sorority” except at a campus level. At my school, the sororities offer nice houses, but at prices comparable to the regular dorms. These places here must cost a fortune to maintain. There must also be a plethora of maids and housekeepers to keep them maintained - those grand stairs don’t just dust and polish themselves.
“These places here must cost a fortune to maintain.”
They do. At present, the chapters at Ole Miss, Arkansas, LSU, and Alabama have 300+ or even 400+ members, so the cost is split over a lot of people who don’t live in the house. With new member classes well over 100, not all the members will ever get to live in the house even for one year.
For my campus, what Hanna says is true. The cost to live on the house was cheaper than the dorm. And your dues went down slightly to boot. That was because part of the dues were for house upkeep. But the house had rules the dorms and apartments didn’t so as beautiful as it was, many girls did not want to LIVE there.
I can see how it wouldn’t cost too much more or even less.
My kids’ on campus housing is about $7,000 these days. Divided by 9 months (not even factoring in many breaks) that’s close to $800 per month for a either a teensy single room or half of a not much bigger double. Unless you are going to school in one of the major cities like SF, NYC, Boston, DC, that is a chunk of change to spend for what you get.
A friend of mine’s daughter recently joined a sorority at the University of Tennessee. Google “University of Tennessee sorority” and click on the images tab. It’s like the Steel Magnolias started their own Beaux Batons school. Mind blowingly picturesque. I don’t know how much more expensive it is, though.
I feel like it’s just a little TOO pretty for me, though. Like I want there to be more rough edges and quirkiness.
There’s a lot of upkeep in those houses. Now that I’m a co-treasurer of a house Corp board, I am now privy to what our house pays for utilities, repairs, etc … Plus getting new furniture every X years and repairing furniture when some girl spills her nail polish remover onto the wood … Plus professional maintenance (carpet cleaning, wood floor refinishing, etc) … Plus renovations (just put in a new kitchen with salad bar, putting in a large screen TV, etc) … plus staff (house mother, cook/handyman, cleaning lady). Plus making the house ADA compliant by adding ramps, internal elevator, reconfiguring space for an ADA-compliant bedroom and bath). Plus insurance. Plus anticipated expenses (we will be adding air conditioning in the next few years but it’s linked to the overall university HVAC system). This is very expensive for a 100-year-old house built to a whole different set of standards, and this isn’t even anywhere near as grand of a showpiece as these Southern homes with verandas and balconies and sweeping staircases and multiple living rooms! I’m currently working on a 5 year plan to anticipate the house’s needs, and knowing what I know about our far more modest houses, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that these Southern house corps have a few million $ in reserve to handle it all.
@Pizzagirl, how do the finances of these houses work? Is there an endowment to pick up the slack between the cost to run the house and the cost to the girls living there?
(I recognize that this is off track for the subject, but as we seem to have exhausted the original topic it seems a fair digression if no one objects.)
“There must also be a plethora of maids and housekeepers to keep them maintained - those grand stairs don’t just dust and polish themselves.”
In all seriousness I wonder how much housekeeping staff it takes for houses of that size/grandeur. Our much-more-modest house - 4 stories tall, sleeps 47 - is fine with one cleaning lady who works 30 hours a week. That encompasses three living rooms, common hallways, a dining area, 3 “group” bathrooms and 1 powder room. (The girls are on their own for their own rooms.) These Southern mansions must seriously need way more household help, especially with finer furniture, chandeliers, grand staircases and such. Plus they have landscaping needs (one thing our houses don’t have to deal with as the outside is maintained by the university). It’s like running a small hotel.
“It’s like running a small hotel.”
That’s right. The larger new houses at Alabama and Arkansas are up to about 40,000 square feet. They have full-time staff. They operate a dining plan for the non-residents, too, so it’s a sizable dining operation, comparable to the house dining halls at Harvard/Yale or the larger ones at Smith.
I had seen pictures, but nothing prepared me for seeing the new houses at Alabama in person. They are beautiful, but the scale is so tremendous that they have more of an institutional vibe than the old mansions did. There’s an unreal, Disney-fantasy quality to the exteriors.
Visiting Alabama and Ole Miss are on my bucket list! I was amazed at the size of the houses at Indiana, which I suspect isn’t in the same league!
Some of the houses at Indiana are colossal and amazing, especially the ones on Third Street. Indiana and Oklahoma have higher bed numbers even though the square footage may be smaller.