This Syracuse University Sophomore’s Vintage-Inspired “Gallery Cluster” Features the Coolest DIY Wall Art

In a shared space, it’s sometimes difficult to inject your own little area with personality. However, Sienna Mello (@siennamello on Instagram) was able to make her corner of a shared room in her sorority house feel personalized, comfortable, and stylish. Her DIY and vintage wall art frame her bed and make the area feel like its own special zone. 

How’d you end up in this space? I live in my sorority house on Syracuse University’s campus! I was so excited to live in the house with all of my closest friends right down the hall. My roommate and I got to choose to live together, and we have loved creating a space that feels cozy and cute together.

Now that you’ve made the space your own, what specifically do you love about it? We worked together on common colors and added our own personal art, pillows, etc., and hope to continue adding fun memories to the room throughout this year.

What’s your space best known for? Since we live in a sorority house, we all hang out together in the living room, dining room, study, etc., so our room is more of our chill wind-down space which is so nice. I can always come to my room to get homework done, relax, or hang with my roomie!

Define your personal home style: I would say my home style is very clean minimalist with fun, vintage, bohemian accents and art.

What’s your favorite element of your space? I am really happy with how my art wall turned out! I threw together some of my favorite vintage graphics and clippings from Pinterest, along with a fun mirror I found to tie in the gold accents with my frames.

What’s your proudest DIY or product hack? I DIY’d the vintage photo booth strip frame myself and love how it turned out! I printed a white-and-pink striped image and taped on a few photo booth strips with my friends from over the years at different booths in New York City! 

To remove the stigma associated with talking about money in college, we’re asking students to share how they plan and budget for their space.

What was your best budget find for this space? I got a lot of my bedding, frames, storage, etc. from HomeGoods, which has great affordable options!

What was your biggest splurge for this space? Most of the items in my room are carried over from my freshman dorm room last year, like my bedding, frames, and headboard. My prints themselves were a bit of a splurge because unfortunately prints are expensive!

What was your biggest challenge in decorating your space? I tried to tackle this wall on a budget by buying cheap gold frames from HomeGoods, printing my wall art from Pinterest instead of buying digital print downloads, and finding a vintage-feel mirror on Amazon! 

What’s your best tip for optimizing a small space? The first thing we did when we moved into our space was move the beds to either side of the wall instead of an L-shape to create the most space possible. We both keep the room pretty clean, with beds made and everything away in bins, shelves, and drawers, which makes our small space feel less crowded and stuffy!

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

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