Life at the Frat House

This year, my daughter will be living in a fraternity house.  

And we are thrilled. 

The rent and location cannot be beat.

ONLY girls will be living in the house, by the way.

Why a fraternity house and not a sorority house?  The sorority house is for the upper classmen and my daughter is not old enough. The fraternity that USED to be in this house was kicked off campus during the summer and had to vacate their house, immediately.  They are not allowed back on the premises for two years.  

The fraternity sent out emails to a few sororities and offered a lower price than the dorms and nearby apartments.  Girls will now fill the once male house.

The house is beautiful from the outside - and is an old brick home about 100 years old.
In the past couple of weeks, the bathrooms were completely gutted, renovated, and re-tiled for the new tenants -Thank goodness!

The room my daughter was assigned still needs ALOT of paint and spackling and cleaning, as do all of the rooms.

Many additions and renovations have been done by 19 year-old boys over the years - with clearly very little adult or female supervision.  Every inch of attic has been turned into loft bedrooms and there are ladders and holes in the sheet rock, everywhere.  My daughter's room includes a pulley connected to a rod tied with duct tape.  Apparently the former tenants would just lower their hanging clothes to eye level when hanging clothes were needed, then raise them up again, to sway near the ceiling until required.  

Today, we removed 30 cardboard beer labels from the ceiling.
Next will be lots of painting and spackling.

Here is our plan, thus far....

We are on a budget, of course.

My daughter and her roommate chose Coventry Gray paint by Benjamin Moore.

We will again be using the aqua futon we purchased at Target, last year.

And she is planning to use a desk I have at home that I painted turquoise a few years ago.

We are using white Ritva panels from Ikea.

I will sew the girls a few pillows and a small curtain for one of the loft beds.  

We are trying to stay under $10 a yard and use as little as possible.

My favorite purchase is this cute Lyrik shade we found at Ikea....

.

We also bought this armoire for her hanging clothes so that she does not have to hang her clothes along the ceiling and raise and lower them with a pulley.

I have a long week ahead of me, as we try to make this space a little more female friendly.

Wish us luck!


(To see last year's dorm room decor and ideas click here and here.)