Learning to Love your Loft
By Antonia Le ‘22
The general housing lottery has come and gone, and cancellation/reassignment time is nearly upon us. For many Trojans who were lucky enough to get into the housing of their dreams, it’s a time to step away and think about what’s really important: buying new decorations for next year’s digs. However, some Trojans are faced with much different tasks: trying to get reassigned to any room other than a loft or figuring out how to downsize their lives so that everything fits into a dorm room the size of a shoebox.
For someone used to a lot of space in their dorm rooms, the lofts can seem stifling. But, as someone who has been living in the lofts of McCarthy Honors College for months and will be living in the lofts of Ilium Residential College next year, I can honestly say that lofts aren’t all that bad. In fact, they’re pretty great. So whether you’re a future Trojan who wants the inside scoop on loft life or a current Trojan who just wants to make the most of their space, here’s some of my tips on making the most of a small space:
1. Reinvest
One great thing about the lofts are that they’re one of the most affordable housing options available to USC students. According to the USC Housing website, a semester in a two-person loft in the village costs roughly $3,300, which is:
- around $900 less than a triple (2 lofted beds and 1 non-lofted bed) in the non-McCarthy village buildings
- around $2000 less than the cheapest non-lofted doubles in all of the Village buildings
If you’ve managed to snag a loft, you now have the opportunity to spend some of your saved money on making your loft truly feel like home. I’m not saying that you should blow two thousand dollars on dorm decorations, but now you can justify splurging on some throw pillows or a new mattress protector to make your bed more comfortable.
If you don’t want to give your dorm room an HGTV makeover, you can also put some of your saved money toward textbooks, school supplies, or even food. Let’s face it: you’re going to get sick of dining hall food, and even if you like cooking, there’s no way that you’ll have time to cook for yourself every single day. So, use some of your saved money and eat out a little more than you normally would. You deserve it.
We go to college to learn how to be adults, and part of adulthood is learning where to spend your money properly. I may not be an economics major, but I think that saving money on a suite and putting it into something else to improve your quality of life is a really great investment.
2. Light & Bright Colors
There’s a reason that the little black dress is a classic fashion item: dark colors are supposed to make people look smaller. This theory can be applied to interior design; if your space is full of dark colors, it will look small and depressing. Instead, invest in pastels and bright color schemes. They will brighten up your space, making your room look a lot bigger than it actually is.
Additionally, light, bright colors have been proven to do wonders for your mood. Cheery colors encourage happiness, and if you decide that your color scheme is going to comprise of sunny hues, you’ll be happy with your loft, too.
3. Commit to Cleaning
A clean loft feels so much bigger than a messy loft.
I know, I know. Cleaning can be a real pain sometimes. But, the benefit of a loft is that with a space so small, there’s only so much mess that you can make. Tidying up a small space is always much easier than tackling a big one. Even a little tidying-up here and there makes a big difference. You don’t have to block out an entire day for cleaning each week; ten minutes spent making sure that everything is in its place every day works wonders on my perception of my room.
Sometimes, if I let a mess grow too long, being in my room will feel like I’m trapped in a cage with a big monster made of old assignments and half-filled notebooks trying to eat me. However, when my space is clean, I’m perfectly able to sit in my room and study without feeling claustrophobic in any way.
4. Get Creative
Just because the lofts come with a certain arrangement does not mean that they have to stay that way. In order to maximize our space, my suitemates and I had to move our furniture around. Specifically, instead of keeping our mini-fridges and microwaves in our respective rooms, we moved them out to the shared common area. Everyone now had more bedroom space, and it became much easier to store food when you had two refrigerators to choose from instead of one.
I also got creative in my own room. The original arrangement of my room’s furniture meant that my wardrobe was placed against the wall, and the components of my desk were under my bed. However, that meant that the wardrobe partially blocked me from being able to pull out my desk drawers. In order to fix this issue, I pushed my wardrobe under my bed, turned part of my desk into a nightstand, and pushed another component against the wall. Now, I’m able to get to everything I need, and I like my room arrangement a lot.
If you find yourself in a less-than-comfortable situation, step back for a while, and reconfigure. Push some of the furniture around to get some ideas. You can always find extra square footage, even in the most unexpected of situations, if only you remember to get creative.
5. Share & Communicate
If you’re living in a small space, there’s no way that you can avoid your roommate. As a result, making the most of your loft means making sure that you and your roommate are always on the same page. Being able to talk to your roommate is always important regardless of where you’re living, but if you want to make your loft feel like a mansion, communication is KEY.
In my loft, the boundaries between the two sides of the room do not exist in some situations, and my roommate and I have agreed as such. For example, when my roommate has people over and I’m out, we have agreed that my desk space (all three parts of it) are fair game to let people set down their cups, keys, or miscellaneous items for a while. This agreement makes the space feel a lot bigger than if there was a clear division between two sides of the room.
On the other hand, if you want to keep your space your space, it’s important to have an open dialogue with your roommate too. Having someone else’s belongings find their way onto your side of the room can make the space feel small, and that makes communicating and defining boundaries vital.
They say that college is what you make of it, and the same can be said about college housing; the lofts don’t have to feel cramped if you don’t want them to feel cramped. Wherever you end up living, remember to give it a little tender loving care, and your room with love you right back.
Want more from Trojans 360?
Visit Trojans 360 on Facebook & Twitter to stay up to date with more student content!
You can also Ask A Trojan an anonymous question, and we’ll try to answer it in a future post!
And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram!
Trojans 360 is USC’s official student-run blog. Content created by students, for students.
