See photos of the makeover
Dorm on a Dime
The room is more than any college student could hope for. The ceiling towers 15 feet above wood floors, a modest walk-in closet is tucked in the corner, the built-in book shelf is enormous, and the focal point is a generous fireplace. True, the fireplace no longer functions, but how many college freshmen can say they live in a turn-of-the-century Federal Revival townhouse adjacent to the Back Bay with a fireplace and a walk-in closet?
``Oh my god, I'm going to move in here," says interior designer Richard L. Laninfa, eyes wide and hands to the heavens. ``This is incredible."
In a sense, Laninfa and his good friend Karen Angell will be moving into this dorm room at Boston Conservatory. At least for two weeks. The recent graduates of the Boston Architectural College interior design program have accepted a challenge from the Boston Globe to decorate a dorm room in exactly two weeks on a miserly budget of $300.
The conceit is straight out of Home and Garden TV, but as contrived as it may sound, Boston students returning to class this week face the same dilemma: limited time, limited cash, and an empty, off-white canvas of a room dotted with nothing but pallid, school-issued furniture. Because it would be too easy to bring in seasoned pros to give this room a grand makeover or throw gobs of cash at the problem, Angell and Laninfa, both former flight attendants and both straddling 50, are chosen for the job.
``We're sort of like Lucy and Ethel," Angell says on their first day of the challenge. ``We're always getting into these situations."
It doesn't take long for Lucy and Ethel to face their first major design scrape. At the start of the process, the walls in the Fenway dorm glow soft yellow, still dinged and scuffed from last semester's inhabitants. Angell and Laninfa spend a week of their time planning and shopping for a milky-yellow dorm room. When they return a week later , building services has paid an unexpected visit, and the room is painted stark white.
``What we both thought when we were here the first time was `French apartment,' " Angell says. ``We were thinking about how contemporary furnishings would fit in this space. The sense we got was that it was very European in here, and the space is historic. The color also lent itself to that."
They had just spent a long week scouring yard sales, thrift stores, and Craigslist freebies thinking ``warm," ``historic," and ``French." They picked up a toile print fabric in gold, which was laid out as a bed spread, and a (gasp) tufted orange chair from the 1970s that was placed in front of the non functioning fireplace, along with a rod iron plant stand filled with silk sunflowers.
Up to this point, the designers have been given autonomy in the dorm room makeover. Their only edict going into the project was to produce a more sophisticated room than that of the average freshman ( i.e. : no Carmen Electra posters, Hello Kitty pillowcases , or keg fridge). But when I enter the dorm room, the sight of gold toile sends a shiver down my spine. At this point I decide to change my role in the story from bystander with a notepad to the Simon Cowell or Tim Gunn of interior design. My fear is that the room is headed down a dangerous path that is too fussy or matronly for a college student. There are framed, French-theme prints that Angell and Laninfa found at a yard sale that look as if they would be more at home in a granny house than on campus.
As I explain what I think works and doesn't work about their historic French dorm design, I'm half-expecting that Laninfa will pin me down and Angell will start throwing punches until I stop talking, but they are mercifully receptive to ideas. We chat about new options that don't involve toile and arrive at a black and white motif.
Angell and Laninfa start hauling the rejected tag sale finds back down three flights of stairs, only to find that Angell's car has been towed. The reality show moments continue when, a few days later, Angell sends an e-mail telling me that Laninfa and his partner of 13 years have just broken up, and he is distraught and understandably having a difficult time focusing on the dorm room. Aside from these setbacks, progress reports sound promising during the second week of the dorm makeover. But because I'm feeling like the entire scenario could easily turn into a V . C . Andrews novel (plot: Cruel journalist locks budding designers away in a dorm room), I decide to take care of the carpet for the room and call Flor, an Illinois-based company that makes modular carpet tiles.
With three days left until the deadline, the room is feeling more homey. A table and chairs that were found at the end of someone's driveway for free have been repaired and spray painted. A chic chandelier from
A few hours before the two week deadline expires, I arrive with the boxes of Flor carpet tiles and a knot in my stomach. While there has been significant progress, there are a few touches I'm not crazy about. A troublesome circular sconce that looks like it was added by Boston Conservatory in 1979 has been turned into a faux fishbowl by the designers, with stickers of fish swimming over fluorescent light. Clever, but a bit gimmicky.
But when I question it, Angell gives me a logical response: ``Students tend to feel like a fish out of water their first year in school, so the fish bowl reflects that." I'm a sucker for fish-out-of-water stories, so score one for the fish bowl, although I'm still not crazy about the cat-o ' -nine - tail stalks underneath.
When I plead for a large piece of black and white print fabric to be used as a cover for the dated orange chair, they explain that if the chair is covered, then the entire room will be an overdose of black and white. The orange is necessary as an accent color. They assemble the room and prove their point. The ratty orange chair stays au naturel.
In fact, the hours leading up to the 2:30 p.m. deadline move more smoothly than just about any other time during the project. The duo has found amazing faux fur pillows on Craigslist for free, sewn incredibly chic covers for other pillows, and decorated the second circular sconce by affixing a cut-out piece of a place mat from Target.
Angell confesses that there are some things about the room that she loves, including the fish bowl, and some things that she's not so crazy about, such as the slightly barren wall near the desk and chairs. But the pair have gone over budget (just slightly) and are out of time, so the wall stays bare.
Just hours after the deadline, Angell and Laninfa face their final bit of drama. The brakes on Angell's car, the same car that was towed the previous week, die just as she pulls into the driveway of her design partner's home.
``Did you ever think decorating a dorm room could cause so much drama?" she asks.
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
