Refashion your dorm with an online design

By Kathleen Hom

The Washington Post

Tired of the generic dorm room that you just moved into days ago? Transform it into your own space with help from DesignYourDorm.com.

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Brian Patrick Flynn Professional interior designer Brian Patrick Flynn decorated this UGA dorm room with bold colors and plenty of functional style.

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Students can register on the site with the name of their school and what residence hall they live in. Then they can check out a 3-D rendering of their space, choosing from models of double rooms, suites and singles or typing in specific dimensions if a model isn't available. From there, students can virtually rearrange generic college furniture by clicking and dragging. They can also virtually add products to the room, buy them and have them delivered from the Web site's store, which is affiliated with Amazon.com. Products, from flat-screen TVs to laundry bags, are organized into categories to make searching easy.

DesignYourDorm.com launched in June and took former University of Arizona students Taylor Robinson and Bryce Widelitz a year to create. Moving to start the freshman year "is a really horrible process," says Robinson, who is now based in his home city of Los Angeles. "There's so much guesswork in moving into the dorm," not to mention lugging furniture into the space or renting a car to return items. With the site's renderings, students will have a better idea of what's going to fit, alleviating some stress and preventing some aching backs.

The site also includes some pre-designed "cool rooms" for inspiration. And Robinson plans to add functions to facilitate roommate collaboration when designing shared spaces and dividing costs, as well as some personalized information about the residence halls and student neighbors.