Sitting on the bed of Jane Moore ’29 is a hand-made quilt, created by her great-grandmother.
“I put another back on it because it was super torn up,” Moore said. “Still not done fixing it, honestly this binding isn’t sewn all the way around, but I keep it on this side so no one knows.”
The quilt is brightly colored, each fabric having its own loud pattern and design. Blue polka dots and yellow florals, red stripes and green gingham. It is not made of the geometric blocks that are common in quilting. Instead the quilt is asymmetrical, abstract shapes stitched together to create a cohesive whole. It is a collection of scraps that Moore’s great-grandmother collected to create something new, memories sewn into the very fabric of the quilt.
Her room in Holmes Hall is built the same way. Each object in the room Moore shares with Lily Pusey ’29 carries meaning, a collection of trinkets gathered throughout their lives. I visited two dorm rooms to see how students turn small spaces into places that feel like home.
“I think some of these things that I have, like some of my stuffed animals and my dolls, I’ve had forever. So it’s kind of a combination of my whole life,” Moore said.
Pusey said something similar, when talking about her prized possession, a vinyl record of “Sports” from the band Modern Baseball.
“I’ve listened to that specific album for a very, very long time now,” she said.
Pusey and Moore’s room has a distinctive maximalist style. No amount of space is left empty, but it never feels cluttered or crowded. In fact, my first impression when entering the room was how big it felt. Moore attributed the sense of space to the lofted bed and the large rug centered on the floor. There is a story to that too.
“I found this on Pinterest. I added it to our Pinterest board and Jane actually bought it,” Pusey said.
Moore said the small size of her summer room drove the purchase.
“I lived here over the summer and in my single, it felt so small. And so I was like, ‘I need a rug,’” she said.
The piece is a take on the Persian rug, with dense, symmetrical designs, but is unique in its color palette of light orange, pink and purple, matching many hues in the room.
Both Pusey and Moore used Pinterest to create this cohesion, and although the two sides of the room meld effortlessly with each other, they each have their distinct styles. “We both like a lot of color,” Pusey said, “kind of more of a playful vibe.” This playfulness is evident in both halves. Moore’s side takes an object-heavy approach, with much of the decoration surrounded by cherished items. She also leans into more primary colors, whereas Pusey stays within pastels.
This two-sided cohesiveness is shared, in Spruce Hall, across campus in the dorm room of Alix King ’29 and Allegra Dalpé-Lawlor ’29. Like Moore and Pusey’s room, theirs has significance to every decoration, or as King put it, “everything has meaning.” Although both rooms share this trait, King and Dalpé-Lawlor’s style is very different from Moore and Pusey’s. The colors are darker. Tapestries adorn the walls and ceilings, lamps and fairy lights illuminate the space. Each side has a distinct color palette, but the two sides complement each other. Large posters take the same space on both sides, and different tapestries create headboards for both beds. Their work is satisfying and well executed.
Being good friends influenced their interior design style. When one made a certain choice with decor that the other liked, the other used her collection to mirror that choice. In this way, King and Dalpé-Lawlor’s ability to bounce ideas off of each other and ask for opinions created the room as it looks today.
On Dalpé-Lawlor’s side, surrounded by green, brown and cream, she showed me her favorite item, a tapestry from India. Each color in the tapestry harmoniously ties together Dalpé-Lawlor’s half, with some reds and purples to complement King’s. The tapestry carries much of the room’s visual weight. Its colors anchor the scheme, and its sequined segments catch the room’s various light sources. The reflection and refraction of light is a common theme in Dalpé-Lawlor and King’s space. They were sure to point me to the prism overlay added to the window. At first it was merely for privacy, but they found that the rainbows cast from the window were among their favorite aspects of the room. With dorm decorating, this mixture of form and function is paramount.
The two rooms share similarities. Both have a musical sensibility, with Pusey’s Beabadoobee posters, and the various bands on King’s walls. Dalpé-Lawlor made sure to tell me that she and King share an “anthem” for the room: “House Tour” by Sabrina Carpenter.
However, the similarities go beyond just a love of music. Both rooms have been crafted to create a sense of home, a sense of shared space, but most importantly, a sense of memory and connection.
It may be the size of the rooms that pushes people to keep only the most important pieces, but it is the people we meet at this pivotal moment who bring those spaces to life. On Moore’s bed, the quilt’s binding is still unfinished, tucked on the side no one sees, a collection of scraps still being stitched into something whole.
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