Students with stylish pads

A perennial problem for students is furnishing their often out-moded university accommodation after years of careless occupants and halls parties. Especially when leaving home for the first time, there’s no more important instance of needing to create a home-from-home atmosphere to settle into quickly.


So the question is, how do you do it without incurring the wrath of halls managers or breaking the bank? There’s 5 key tips we believe will help you/or your offspring make the most of the available accommodation and make it feel homely in the process.

First off, pick furniture that will multi-task for you. You’ve not got much space, so having furniture that serves several purposes will make life easier. Pick up a futon or sofa bed so you’ve got a spare bed, a storage ottoman to double up as a coffee table, or a table that can be used for eating or studying at.

Next, opt for clever storage that makes the most of your room’s height. If there’s not much length or width to your personal space, adding in wall mounted shelves or wall hangings will work a treat. As will under bed storage boxes to help to pile up all your necessary knick-knacks.

Clear out the clutter (or at least out of the way) with desk and shelf tidies. These super easy storage boxes will help you focus when working and make it easy to grab bits on the way to lectures! Head to Ikea for incredibly cheap yet stylish options.

Next up, colour. You’re stuck with those drab magnolia coloured walls, but no one said you can’t spruce up your pad with colourful rugs, bedding, throws or other splashes of textiles. It doesn’t need to be expensive, but it’s one way to make a big impact with very little money to spend.

And finally, have your own Art Attack. This is your space, albeit for a year, so hang your posters (ask first if blue tack or pins are preferred by the halls of residence management to avoid a telling off later!), put up the photo frames and inject your personality in to the little space you have.

Perfectly preserved pieces for the home, set or exhibition

Here’s an innovative idea to add an air of mystery to your home, Dutch designer Maarten Baas has been preserving interior design pieces with a unique approach of combining charred furnishings with an epoxy resin.


Exhibiting 25 pieces in New York, the Smoke collection is an unusual concept that reclaims abandoned and forgotten furniture to preserve them as souvenirs of the past.

Iconic pieces from the likes of Gaudi were blowtorched to create the necessary impact and coated in the translucent resin sealant to preserve the furnishings from turning to ash whilst retaining the charred texture.

A fragile project that’s been hardcoated for posterity as objet d’art, we’re just grateful that international design company Moooi have commissioned reproductions for distribution.

Kooky creations from Straight Line Designs

With furniture concepts straight out of Alice in Wonderland or a Tim Burton flick, we’ve pretty much fallen in love with Straight Line Designs.

It’s fortunate they ship worldwide because these Canadian creators of frankly the most fun furnishings we’ve seen in a long while take our breath away.

With tables that take a tinkle on your rug, beds shaped as beehives, cabinets in the shape of carrots, and drawers that melt on to the floor we’re wondering just what they’re likely to come up with next.

Made from the finest materials, primarily maple solids and veneers, these fully functional pieces of furniture would be an absolute dream to have in the home.

We’re particularly excited about their latest offering, the little black dress(er) which suspends from straps on a wardrobe rail.

Not exactly the nifty nightwear that usually comes to mind, but one we’d definitely keep in the closet.

Best for unique home furnishings online: etsy.com

We reckon we’ve found the ultimate in stylish home furnishings. Ladies and gentlemen, may we present Etsy.

A site dedicated to selling bespoke artisan pieces from across the globe, this site is the Amazon equivalent for the artsy among us. They list a million new products each month!

Pick uniquely designed pieces from your local area, or choose something from another continent with the location finder; alternatively, and this is our favourite find, use the colour picker to select items to fill your home with according to specific colour themes.


Just drag your mouse around the screen until you find the exact shade you’re looking for, and click!

Magically it matches the shade to images of products within the site and does the hard work for you.

We like. A lot.