This Colorful, Eclectic Florida Gulf Coast University Dorm Has the Cutest Celestial Details

When Stacey Charles (@stacey.m.charless on TikTok) moved into her senior-year dorm at Florida Gulf Coast University, she didn’t have a master plan — just a growing sense of what she actually liked. After years of reusing the same freshman-year decor in every space, she shed her self-appointed “minimalist” label and started decorating with intention. She filled her space with tons of personal touches, from posters of Noah Kahan to the coolest hanging stars for her ceiling. She even has her own “TV wall,” thanks to a projector setup. The result of all these personal touches is a colorful, warm, and incredibly peaceful senior year hangout.

How did you find this space? My space was randomly assigned when my friends and I were applying for housing together for our senior year. Honestly, we wanted to find a 3×3 for us to live in when we chose housing, but since it was so competitive, we ended up picking a dorm that had three rooms available in a 4×4 that happened to be the same exact dorm our friends lived in at the time, but they were either graduating or moving to another dorm. We had no idea which room we got when we assigned ourselves to a room, but everything worked out for the best because I love my room so much!

How do you feel now after making the space your own? I love how spacious it is and the view we get from our dorm — it’s in the parking lot, but we get the sunset, so it’s pretty great. My favorite thing about my room is the stars across my ceiling and the posters I have up as well. I never really decorated my room before in my prior dorms simply because I didn’t know what I liked or wanted, so I just kept putting things up that I had from my freshman year dorm in every dorm I moved into after. The first posters I got were my Noah Kahan poster (my favorite artist), the Spider-Man poster, and my Demon Slayer poster. I got them all at my school where there was a vendor/reseller on campus. It was my first piece of personality and art that I ever added to my room to make it feel like mine, and I loved it! I previously classified myself as a minimalist because I didn’t have a lot of decoration, but that’s not true — I just didn’t know how to decorate, what caught my eye, or what to do or add to make it feel like one cohesive space. I also just started buying things I wanted for my room and not being afraid to spend my own money on things that I wanted.

What is your space best known for? Its peaceful feel. 

What is your personal style? I would say colorful, warm, and inviting.

What’s your favorite element of your space? I like my posters and tapestries.

Where do you get your inspiration? The stars on the ceiling I got as inspiration from a girl I follow on TikTok. She has such a great room and has stars dangling from her ceiling, so I bought string stars with the intention of cutting them to make them dangle, too, but I ended up kind of draping [them] and it added the perfect feel to my room now, which is quite girly and earthly but in a spring way, not in an autumn way. 

I also have a blank wall next to my desk (besides hanging some birthday cards from my friends, pictures of me from my first day of senior year, and my accomplishment certificate from my internship) that I use for my projector! So that’s basically my TV wall.

Overall, the decor I had in my room as a freshman has still followed me to my senior dorm and is showcased in my room, but it definitely fits the vibe I have in here without it looking bland, like a bunch of string ivies and moon mirrors. I also have my sorority wall where I have the paddles I was gifted when I was initiated, and I love that so much, too. 

And my little painting that I have — you see it when you walk into my room — is of Gary from SpongeBob Squarepants. I painted him during one of my sorority hangouts. I also just recently added focus LED lights above my posters, and it adds the perfect ambiance and feeling to my room. It makes it feel like a dark art gallery and it meshes well with my candle warmer, which is also a source of light in my room — never the big light. I too hate the big light.

What’s your proudest DIY hack? My hanging lights and the painting I have of a woman from a Painting with a Twist birthday I went to.

What was your biggest challenge in decorating your space? Just finding what I wanted to fill up the space and not feeling like I was pressuring myself to put things up that I didn’t really like. It was asking myself a lot of questions to figure out what I liked and what I wanted to showcase and share.

What are your best organizing tips? I’m a very clean and organized person, so honestly I have everything in a designated place and I hate being inconvenienced when I walk around my room and trip over something. I have my everyday shoes in my ottoman under my bed that’s also a seat cushion, so every day I come in and put my shoes there. I keep my jeans folded on top of the clothing rack in my closet so it’s easy-access and I can see if it’s disorganized, too, and fix it. My clothes are also color coordinated and my pants are hung first at the start of my closet so that they’re easy to take out and wear and they don’t interfere with the other clothes by getting them messed up or moved around too much.

This submission’s responses were edited for length and clarity.

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