20 Cute and Trendy Neutral Dorm Room Ideas
Achieve the aesthetic dorm room of your dreams with these neutral dorm room ideas.
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Quickly transform your college home with neutral dorm room ideas, including wall art, a simple color palette with pops of color, and boho dorm room accents that create a cozy and welcoming space. Dorm rooms are a small space and decorating them with light colors will help make the room look bigger.
You want your dorm room to be a space where you can reflect, be with friends, focus, and feel comfortable – and you can achieve that with these simple design guidelines and creative elements that will give your dorm the neutral transformation it deserves!
Your dorm room is where you spend all of your time when you’re not in classes or on campus with friends, so you want to create a comfortable space that allows you to feel like your best self. Create a Pinterest-worthy dorm with these 20 neutral dorm room ideas!
Here are 20 cute and trendy neutral dorm room ideas.
CUTE AND TRENDY NEUTRAL DORM ROOM IDEAS
1. ADD RUST-ORANGE ACCENTS
You can create a fantastic desert-inspired dorm room with pops of color that are rust-orange, whether you use a throw blanket over the corner of your bed, a piece of wall art with that rust-orange hue, or some throw pillows. A subtle desert-inspired accent color throughout your dorm that flows with neutral colors will create that cozy and homey vibe.
Recreate it!
2. DECORATE YOUR WALLS WITH BOHO MACRAME
Macrame is a cute and creative way to breathe life into a smaller space – with neutral tones and natural elements. To create the ultimate neutral-boho space, you can use macrame items like wall decor, baskets, bins, throw blankets, pillows, and even plant hangers to elevate your dorm to give it that neutral-boho aesthetic.
Recreate it!
3. GET CREATIVE WITH FAIRY LIGHTS
You can take advantage of the soft, warm light that fairy lights provide to decorate your dorm – create a light canopy or drape them around your bed – in a way that ties the whole room together. It’s also a great way to add warm and subtle light to your room without having any obnoxious fluorescent lights on while studying. Fairy lights also give the feel of a minimalist dorm room with a touch of boho.
4. USE A TOUCH OF GREENERY
College students can transform a small dorm room into a neutral-color dream with a touch of greenery. You can combine the fairy lights and some fake ivy to create a canopy of lights and leaves above your bed or create a unique tapestry by letting ivy curtains drape your walls. You can also combine macrame plant hangers with trailing plants (real or fake) to add that touch of green to accent nicely against the neutral color palette.
Recreate it!
5. CREATE COMFY LAYERS WITH NEUTRAL THROW PILLOWS
You can easily stick to your neutral color palette and add some dimension by using textured throw pillows. This cute college dorm room has all-white pillows, one with accents of tan stripes and the other with a cute fuzzy texture that adds to the comfort and aesthetics of the neutral colors – whoever said neutral had to be boring?
6. GET COZY WITH BOHO WOVEN FURNITURE
Woven furniture is a way to create that homey feel without having big pieces that take up space. These can be simple, like a woven hanging chair, a simple stool with woven accents, or a woven side table – there are endless possibilities to incorporate this into a smaller space. These can be neutral browns, beige tones, or white to contrast with other browns and desert tones throughout your dorm.
7. GROW ROOTS WITH FAUX PLANT DECOR
Dorms are typically shared spaces, and if you don’t trust your roommate to look after live plants while you’re away – you may want to opt for faux plant dorm decor to add that touch of green to balance the neutral tones. You can combine trailing plants with cacti or tall plants with textured pots to create variety in the space.
8. FEEL AT HOME WITH NEUTRAL BOHO TAPESTRIES
You can easily spice up your dorm room walls with fun boho-style tapestries with a mandala design but in a neutral color palette! You can also find ones with faded stripes of beige or taupe or other prints that fit with the entire aesthetic of a desert-vibe, boho, or neutral dorm!
Say goodbye to staring at cinder blocks or boring walls – a simple tapestry can transform the entire space and tie it all together. You can couple a minimalistic tapestry with a tall faux palm, white bedspread, and some macrame wall art, and you’re set!
Recreate it!
10. ADD AN ARTISTIC ELEMENT WITH SIMPLISTIC LINE WALL ART
Line art is a beautiful and minimalistic way to add personality to your dorm room – something as simple as a single piece of artwork, or you can create a gallery wall next to your bed using line art and other neutral wall decors to make a large wall piece.
Wall decor is where you can get creative with how you decorate your dorm and choose to arrange your wall art – you can make it simple and minimalistic wall art, or you can fully embrace the boho and neutral vibe by going all out.
11. LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE WITH MINIMALIST NEON
If fairy lights aren’t your thing, but you want to incorporate softer light into your dorm room, a simple and boho neon sign can give you the aesthetic you’re looking for. Etsy has many neon signs that you can customize to match the neutral vibe.
This super simple neon sign with the word ‘love’ in a calligraphy or script type font creates a welcoming and comforting feel to the room as a whole – making it easy to study, relax and read a good book, or hang out with your friends.
11. LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE WITH MINIMALIST NEON
If fairy lights aren’t your thing, but you want to incorporate softer light into your dorm room, a simple and boho neon sign can give you the aesthetic you’re looking for. Etsy has many neon signs that you can customize to match the neutral vibe.
This super simple neon sign with the word ‘love’ in a calligraphy or script type font creates a welcoming and comforting feel to the room as a whole – making it easy to study, relax and read a good book, or hang out with your friends.
Recreate it!
12. STICK TO YOUR COMFORT ZONE WITH STICK WALLPAPER
There are so many retailers, including Amazon, that have “renter-friendly” stick-on wallpaper that you can use on your dorm room walls to spice it up and avoid staring at a blank wall. It is also a different and creative way to decorate your wall without hanging anything or creating holes.
You can find a stick-on wallpaper that fits your theme and aesthetic – brick, wood, some plants, a cool neutral pattern, or simply different colors. It will add a pop of color and be used as a backdrop for your whole dorm room setup.
Recreate it!
13. SADDLE UP FOR RUSTIC NEUTRAL
If that clean white, minimalist, boho decor isn’t your cup of tea, there are many other ways to create a neutral dorm room you love and feel comfortable in, no matter what aesthetic you prefer. You can create a rustic neutral dorm room by incorporating a cow print rug or throw blanket using dark wood as accents against a white bedspread and light furniture.
14. NEW YORK NEUTRAL
Brick walls and tiny spaces aren’t just reserved for the studios of New York City – you can create your little slice of New York anywhere in the country by using stick-on wallpaper and some neutral greys to turn your dorm room anywhere into its little piece of NYC!
This dorm idea can create a cozy little nook inside your room that’s perfect for studying, reading, and eating all the ramen you could imagine while watching Netflix.
15. USE SUBTLE ACCENTS OF METALLIC
No matter what color palette you want to use for your dorm room aesthetic, whether it’s rustic, New York vibes, neutral boho, or anything else that makes you feel warm and cozy inside, you can always spice it up with accents of metallic.
It can be as simple as a lamp or accents on a piece of furniture – but it will give the room an extra touch that isn’t just beige and white. This dorm room used metallics in the wall decor, lamp, and bedside table – tying it all together.
16. THE VSCO DORM
Peace signs, posters, and ivy trailing plants pair well together in this neutral dorm room setup – but with pops of color. The overall aesthetic of the combination of colorful retro-style posters with white or beige bedspreads creates a modern-retro look to showcase your creativity.
You can recreate this setup with a grey or taupe bedspread to give the room a more warm-neutral feel. But if you like the stark contrast of posters with bright colors, green trailing plants, and white bedsheets and furniture – you might just want to recreate this cute room!
17. THE BEAUTY OF GREY AND TAUPE
This dorm setup is like wanderlust meets rustic – a perfect combination of taupe, beige, and white with darker furniture. You can get creative with this type of design and decor choices, especially if you’re a ‘wanderlust’ or outdoorsy girl but like some elements of girly and chic.
The tassel wall decor is fun to incorporate texture into your dorm without sacrificing space with oversized furniture like a fuzzy chair or woven stool.
18. THE POWER OF BLACK AND WHITE
Neutrals can also be high-contrast, like black and white. You can use more white to give the whole room a more relaxed and airy feel. In this dorm room, they used black as an accent color, making white stand out more.
You can add tapestries and woven wall decor to add texture to the room and create a sense of comfort and cozy.
19. DESERT SAND
You can play with different shades of neutral by adding desert sand colors such as burnt orange and light pastel pink to liven up your room with pops of color in creative ways. You can add posters and wall decor or throw pillows and blankets.
Take advantage of the dull and bare walls that college campuses offer you for the low price of hundreds of dollars – and add some color with decorative curtains or unique wall art that stands out.
20. THE ELEGANT AND SIMPLE
Not all dorms have to be completely decked out to be purposeful and aesthetically – you can do a lot with a little. This simple setup has a neutral color palette, a polaroid gallery wall, and simple yet practical furniture. It screams elegant and straightforward, meaning you don’t have to spend a few hundred at Target to recreate this!
Now that you have all these gorgeous and creative neutral dorm room ideas, which ones will you use for your college dorm? Will you go all-out neutral with little to no pop of color? Black and white neutral palette? Rust orange and pastel pink? Boho and woven furniture?
