<p>Thanks for all the great suggestions!</p>
<p>Often target has free shipping if you spend $50. Easy to do.</p>
<p>Best thing at the container store is the rod setup that allows for double closet rod. They have the only one that I could find that adjusts both in width and length.</p>
<p>Ikea has the hanging things for shoes. Inexpensive and they last a long time. My daughter used them for all kind of things besides shoes.</p>
<p>What my daughter found fun, and didn’t seem necessary at the time were but were really useful were:</p>
<p>A tool kit (yup, a hammer and screw driver came in handy, and when the guys wanted to borrow them and griped that they were pink, my daughter said, will at least I have tools!!"</p>
<p>A nerf football</p>
<p>Markers </p>
<p>A small shelf unit for deck to put printer on and create more storage</p>
<p>A swivel chair (my daughter’s dorm room chair was realllllyyyy uncomfortable, bad shape and no amount of padding would fix it)</p>
<p>An area rug or a couple of large bathroom rugs for the cold floor, often people sit on the floor to study, or visit)</p>
<p>jptmom,
So funny - I could have written your original post. My daughter, also, will be going to NYC for college (parsons), living in a two room dorm suite (two bedrooms, two girls in each, kitchen, bathroom and living area) .
I just logged on to ask the same question you did. Thank you everyone for all the answers. </p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>Sunday evening we went to our local Container Store, which was having a 20%-off-everything-in-the-store dorm sale (they are on different dates at the stores all over the country–check their website). I had to laugh, because the place was a zoo of moms and daughters leaping at every offering, with just a couple of very bored looking boys who weren’t taking an interest in anything their mothers pointed out. I honestly don’t think they had anything there that couldn’t be found at a lot of other places, but the service was a pleasure, with what must have been their entire sales force on duty, asking if we needed help every couple of minutes, rushing to find what we wanted and bringing our purchases to the car on a hand truck. On entering they had the students mark the location of their college on a map and gave them name tags so they could be addressed personally by the staff–it was cute and made for a rather festive atmosphere. We found that without a good sense of D’s dorm room and the sizes of the shelves and doors on the built-ins, we couldn’t commit to a lot of storage items yet, but found some good solutions for shoes and jewelry (D is an earring junkie). Our receipt included a coupon for the same discount through October so we can pick up more items if necessary once have we have a better handle on the room. It was a fun evening, the only downside being that the Cheesecake Factory, where we went to reward ourselves for our hard work, is now subject to new laws requiring calorie counts on each menu item–quite a buzzkill! And yes, the numbers were mind-boggling. Anyone for a 3000 cal. entree?</p>
<p>DD still makes use of the hanging sweater shelves she used in her wardrobe (they did not have a closet). They provided that extra shelf space for things that did not really fit in the dresser. Their rooms were lofted by necessity so there was no under-bed storage. But there was storage on top of the wardrobe that she could reach from her lofted bed. There was a little gap behind the dresser that was under the lofted bed where she could store her duffel and small suitcase out of the way. We took extra suitcases home with us and then brought them back before the end of the year. You really need to know the room configuration to make storage decisions. .</p>
<p>We did get DD a cushion for the dorm chair. We did not buy another desk chair because she HAD to keep the dorm issued one in her room (no place to store it) and it would have been very crowded with two desk chairs. AND we would have had to store a purchased desk chair during the summers. The cushion was a good compromise.</p>
<p>I love the idea of an inflatable mattress - brillant! </p>
<p>In regards to kitchen stuff, I was at the dollar store the other day, and really for $20.00 you can outfit perfectly for your students needs in a dorm environment. I would save the ikea/target/bb kitchen shopping until apartment living.</p>
<p>I have to agree that less is more when it comes to the dorm room. A mirror, desk chair, mattress cover, wastebasket and/or bookshelves may be provided. If not, pick them up locally or or order online - you don’t need every item at hand at drop off; they aren’t going to the moon.
Don’t break out the bed risers until you see the actual bed - second son’s was adjustable to a couple of heights without using risers. The only unique things we bought him were a couple of over the door hooks (plastic ones for the bath towel) and a set of shelves after he was all moved in and did have a bit of room left. And he did bring a collapsible camp chair for extra seating. A second set of sheets (or at least pillowcases) is nice. An old flannel sheet makes a good bedcover for for the hot weather, before they need to take out the comforter.</p>
<p>Ditto storing soft luggage inside a trunk or larger suitcase. I’m a fan of the collapsible crates sold at Costco (and most likely elsewhere). Great for lugging stuff from car to dorm (for those driving) and then can be stored flat in the dorm room if need be. However, DS#1 and 2 have found multiple uses for the crates: place upside down and put printer on it, place on end on closet shelf and use to store textbooks or stacks of folded sweaters.</p>
<p>Depending on location within NYC, other places to check include Century 21, Daffy’s, K-Mart, Macy’s–especially if you’ll be here for the Labor Day sale, Sam Flax, Home Depot, CVS, Walgreen’s, TJMaxx, Costco.</p>
<p>Desk: I loved having cheap steel book ends for organizing text books etc., but my freshman dorms had a hutch over the desk. Also, covering cork boards with fabric added a nice personal touch to them. I brought a comfy desk chair which made all the difference when it came to studying. Other than that, I just used the drawers in the desk.</p>
<p>Closet: I have more folded than hanging clothes, so I added one of those sets of hanging shelves to my closet for more space. It worked really well for me! I also had a hanging shoe organizer that I used for small seasonal stuff (scarves/gloves, swim suits/sunglasses, etc) and a few pair of shoes. I’m not picky about my shoes so I just threw them all in a bin that sat on the floor. I had 2 crates for the shelf at the top of my closet–one held infrequently used toiletries/meds, the other held spare sheets/towels and random crafts.</p>
<p>Bed: A lot of places sell shelves that attach to bed frames so that kid on the top bunk (me!) can keep a clock and cell phone handy. I really liked having one of those! Can they bunk their beds? I’d recommend it because it frees up so much floor space, but some people are really anti-top bunk. </p>
<p>I also had a footlocker trunk that doubled as a coffee table (we had a futon though) and extra seating. It’s pretty basic looking but it also had a lock on it, so we could lock it occasionally if we wanted to (didn’t have valuables though). We kept cleaning supplies and spare food in it (think Ramen and paper towels and soap) and maybe a blanket, which worked great. </p>
<p>My only other advice for you would be to think vertically–go with taller shelf sets rather than wide ones or multiple ones, since a lot of times dorms have strangely high ceilings and few people think to use that space!</p>
<p>I also really liked having a lamp with a few heads (not the moveable forbidden ones, more like a tall floor lamp) because I think fluorescent lighting is absolutely atrocious. Christmas lights were a nice touch too.</p>
<p>If she’s picky about dark sleeping spaces (as I tend to be), I’d recommend blackout curtains–I really wish I had some last year!</p>
<p>I bought a footlocker from an army surplus store when I went away to college. I filled it with bed linens, towels, school supplies. Not too full, because you don’t want it to be too heavy, and you want it to last the year. I shipped it air cargo to the college, and they delivered it to the dorm. This was 30 years ago. I either shipped it back and forth in May or August or took it with me to my summer dorm, as I took a lot of summer classes. During the couple of weeks off in the summer, an international friend usually would store it. The footlocker fit in the bottom of the closet, and it is the bottom of my home closet still to this day. It would lock, so could put cash in it when left the dorm room. Not the most glamorous looking thing, but certainly, useful. As we didn’t really use backpacks back then, I would store all my textbook and notebooks in it, and then shipped them home in it at the end of the school year. I used a “schoolbag” for class, had one hard rolling suitcase (that was cutting edge back then) and a denim purse. I flew to and from Miami to New Orleans. My parents never even saw my college, and I didn’t even have a license, much less a car. My dorm room had a desk with a bookshelf and chair, a bed, and a closet. Oh, to have that simple life again!</p>