This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Leeds chapter.

Moving into your new flat or house can be a daunting experience whatever year you are in but a key element to feeling relaxed throughout university is having a place to feel comfortable in, call your own and feel like home! Here are some great ways to make your new place feel homey, so you can have somewhere to escape, relax, study and sleep.

Furnishing your room is essential to efficiently filling the empty space with stylish accessories. Before moving in, a top tip would be to pick a theme that you can relate to any pieces that you purchase, this will make your room feels much less chaotic and more polished. If you’re worried about feeling homesick, consider replicating the colours or theme that you have in your bedroom back home, and that way you will instantly feel settled. Some great theme ideas include monochrome, floral, cosmic (moons and stars), hippie, nautical, or simply pick your favourite colour and stick with that as a theme!

Here are some furnishing ideas:

Plants

I would say plants are an essential piece of decor to add to your room! Not only do they go with any style of room, but they help make your room feel more tranquil by bringing nature indoors. Indoor plants are also a source of oxygen, they are proven to help fight colds, help with headaches and clear toxins from the area! Plants are also great for having around your home, not only for decoration, but as something you and your flatmates can take shared responsibility for, giving you a brilliant opportunity to bond. If you have a busy lifestyle and will often forget to water your plants, fake plants and cacti are a perfect solution, giving the same decorative effect. Jazz up your plants by buying cute plant pots, keep an eye out for plant sales happening around campus so you can pick up some cool plants and pots!

Lights

Adding different types of lights can be the simplest way to bring a new atmosphere to anywhere in your room, flat or house. Firstly, LED strip lights are a really easy way to jazz up a space and with multicoloured options, you can switch easily from calm bedroom lights, to exciting party lights for the kitchen on a night out! With their easy application, you can attach these to pretty much anything – an effective way of placing them is along the skirting board of a room, or under the ridge of a piece of furniture.

Also, fairy lights are an absolute uni essential! Every time I feel I need some time to relax I can always put on my fairy lights and read a good book, warm fairy lights in particular will create a softer atmosphere than a main bedroom light. Remember to always check the rules of your residence on fairy lights as many require battery powered lights instead of plug in (another great tip if you have battery powered lights is to buy a battery charger, and then you can save energy and waste by reusing batteries). Fairy lights don’t just have to be for the bedroom; wrapping them around a bannister is a great idea for parties and putting them in the living room is nice for cosy movie nights in.

For hanging lights, command hooks are a great idea to purchase for easy application and removal!

Collages

Collaging is not just a great way to get crafty, but also a cool way of decorating. You can bring together all your favourite things to personalise your space, arranging anything from pictures, postcards, event flyers, and tickets together, to remind you of happy times and places. An alternative to just sticking this straight onto the wall is to make a collage on a big piece of card and then hang it up, creating a sharper and neater look. You could even put the completed collage into a frame for added effect. Another style idea could be to print all of your photos in black and white, adding an element of sophistication to your room.

Collaging is also a great way to fill up wall space around your house, for example, in the living room you can arrange photos of you and your flatmates from over the years. Also taking and collaging art from magazines is a cheap alternative to buying posters/prints.

Tapestries

This is the easiest way to fill up a blank space! Have a look around for different wall-hangings and tapestries to see what really suits your style. (Remember, this takes up quite a lot of space, so as the dominant thing in the room, you want to make sure you chose carefully and really love any piece you buy!)

Party decorations

Buying cheap party decorations from party stores, supermarkets, or gift shops can be another way to help decorate different rooms in your house. From streamers to balloons, and pom poms to garlands, there are so many options to help add fun to your house. You could even get a bit crafty and make something yourself such as paperchains or bunting (either paper or fabric – if you can sew!). Making decorations with your flatmates is another great way of bonding and can even help with the recycling by using up spare packaging, paper, or old clothes.

Prints

Again, buying prints is a really simple and effective way of setting the theme/style of your room, and can provide a way of reflecting your personality in your space. My favourite place to buy affordable prints is from Depop, their ‘FIKA PRINT’ and ‘Girl Visual’ pages are particularly good and they often have deals on cost the more you buy. Also, buying cheap frames from places such as Ikea or Wilko, is a cost-effective way of making your room look sleeker. An alternative to buying prints, is framing cool wrapping paper (often found in gift shops and stores like Paperchase). Or, you could make your own prints by creating simple patterns and drawings on card and then going over them with permanent marker (I’ve done this in my room on black card, with metallic pens).

Words by Rosa Hibbert.

Six Ways To Make Your Uni Flat Feel Like Home