#92: Overly elaborate dorm room configurations

It’s already established that residence halls are an important part of life for Notre Dame Students.  At many colleges, dorms might be simply the place where students sleep at night and have a desk to occasionally work; but for Notre Dame Students, dorms actually become their home (and remain as a home for them even after they move out).  In an effort to make their rooms more homey, Notre Dame Students plan and construct the most elaborate dorm rooms possible.

To begin their room construction, Notre Dame Students start at the floor by purchasing wall-to-wall carpeting to cover the tile.  While throw rugs would certainly be the easiest option, Notre Dame Students know that cutting carpeting to perfectly fit their rooms not only looks great and feels comfortable, but requires the extra bit of effort that makes a perfect dorm room (despite the fact that it’s impossible to adequately clean vomit and beer spills out of carpeting).

After their floors are covered, Notre Dame Students will then look for the most efficient way to fit all of the essential beds, desks, wardrobes and dressers into their room.  Being efficient with this is not only important because it saves space for extraneous items later, but it also shows how clever Notre Dame Students can be with using limited resources and building things.  Most Notre Dame Students determine that the best way to go with these essential items is up, and they build elaborate lofts to make their rooms into multi-level enterprises with their beds (and sometimes even desks) high enough off the floor so that they can walk under them and plan a further living space. 

Once they have their essential furniture in place, and have made sure that they have enough room for the largest possible desk chair they can buy at Office Depot, Notre Dame Students shift their attention to the living spaces that are more important to them.  Many students will construct television stands that sometimes act as lofts themselves, oftentimes with room for two or more televisions, mini-fridges, video game systems, sound systems, and cable boxes. 

Notre Dame Students will want their rooms to fit multiple televisions so that they can watch several things at once (especially during football season), and entice as many people as possible to congregate in their room.  To successfully do this, Notre Dame Students will do their best to maximize seating by having multiple couches and chairs in their rooms.  Furthermore, they will maximize viewing opportunities from these couches by raising one or more on cinder blocks above others to create a stadium seating atmosphere that improves sightlines to televisions and shows how serious the residents are about watching sporting events.

As the icing on the cake, Notre Dame Students will construct elaborate bars in their rooms that they will use to host parties and pregames.  These bars will usually have at least one fridge behind them (and oftentimes a blender), as well as a stockpile of liquors, mixers, and a wide array of drinking glasses of all shapes and sizes.  After that, Notre Dame Students will clutter up the walls of their rooms with posters, pennants, flags (see #55), and bar neons in an inexplicable attempt to recreate the atmosphere of a TGI Friday's.

Once they are finished, Notre Dame Students will invite all of their friends over to see how awesome their room is.  They will show it off to people they don’t even know to make themselves feel good.  They will use their awesome room to throw parties and entice people to it, and they will end up losing money maintaining their stockpile of liquor behind the bar.  Ultimately, Notre Dame Students will love these rooms, because once they are complete; they will truly be home.