Extreme Dorm Makeover

“Ugh, when you suggested living on campus, I thought it would be more fun!” Olli groaned, jumping onto the couch.

Carmen sat next to her, while I paced around the living room.

“Living on campus isn’t about fun Olli, it’s about being closer to the school so we don’t have to drive 15 minutes to school everyday. Plus it can give you a sense of responsibility, shopping for groceries and all” Carmen explained.

“Yea, yea I know that. But the dorms are so bland. They need some pizzaz.” Olli said.

“Hmmm,” I thought, and walked around our dorm. It was one story, and pretty basic. On the left wall there are 3 doors, each one going to our rooms. In the far wall is the kitchen, and when you enter the dorm you can see a couch and a TV. The bathroom/laundry room is in a far-left corner. Our dorm isn’t the flashiest, but its nice.

“Then what should we do? Since our dorm is so awfully boring” Carmen asked.

“Well it’s fall isn’t it? We should decorate!” Olli suggested.

I shrugged, “That sounds pretty cool”

“Decorate with what?” Carmen asked “We don’t have any money”

“Oh. You’re right…” I realized.

“No need to be in distress girls! I have an idea!” Olli ran towards her room, and a few moment later she emerged with a stack of contruction paper, some glitter, and scissors.

Carmen sighed, Olli really was serious about this.

“Ok then, let’s set up our area and get crafting!” I rubbed my palms together and picked up a stack of paper. 

***

“Carm it’s seriously not that hard. Just cut along this outline here” Olli instructed. 

“I know I know, it’s just hard ok!” Carmen replied.

I sighed, they’d been at this for 15 minutes now. Olli was trying to help Carmen cut out these paper leaves for a little garland.

“Here lemme try” I said, reaching over for a sheet of red construction paper. Olli drew a maple leaf on the paper for me to cut out. I propped the paper horizantaliy in my hand and started cutting. Carmen watched me closely, as if we were at some kind of lecture. 

Once I finsished cutting, I held up the paper leaf and studied it.

“Done” I set down the leaf and handed Carmen the scissors, “It’s not that hard”

Carmen sighed and picked up another sheet, and started to cut.

“See, you’re doing great Carm. Soon we’ll have enough to make a great garland!” Olli exclaimed.

I set down the red leaf I cut out and grabbed the glitter glue. While Carmen cut out a few more leaves, I decorated the edges of the leaf with glitter. Now I just needed for it to harden. I sat back in my chair as I watched Olli guide Carmen through cutting out more leaves. 

***

About an hour later, we had about 15 paper leaves, coated with a gloss paint and bordered with dried glitter glue. Now all we needed to do was get some string and a hole puncher.

“Wow, that wasn’t as hard as I thought it was gonna be.” Carmen shrugged.

“Told ya so. Now we need some string” Olli walked into her room and reaturned with a silver holepuncher with blue rhinestones, and a two balls of yarn, one black and one red. 

“Here we go, let’s get stringing!” Olli sat down the yarn and showed us how it worked. 

“You punch a hole at the top of the leaf, and then loop the string through the hole” Olli demonstrated by cutting off a long piece of red yarn, and punched a hole through the top. She strung the yarn through the hole and tied a knot the the end of the string. She took another leaf and did the exact same thing.

“Seems easy enough” Carmen shrugged, taking a leaf and stringing it onto the yarn.

“Yup, so why don’t you string the yarn while me and Olli make something else?” I suggested.

“Fine with me” Carmen shrugged and went back to stringing.

I pulled out my laptop and googled, “Fall decoraions out of contruction paper” and got a few results. I clicked on a link to a Pinterest post. The page loaded, and a picture of a wreath popped up. Below were instructions on how to make it, all you needed to do was cut strips of contruction paper together and weave them in a circle. It seemed easy enough, and it looked really nice in the photo. 

I turned to Olli, “What do you think?”

“Let’s do it, it’ll look great!” Olli exclaimed.

***

“I. Hate. Everything.” I set down one of my strips and shook my hands a little.

“I think I’m getting a cramp from all this weaving. Olli how are you still going?” I asked her.

“I used to do a lot of arts and crafts with my mom and grandma when I was little, so I think that’s helping me” She said, not looking over at me. She was razor-focused on her part of the wreath. It was coming together perfectly, I was super jealous. 

Carmen looked over from her garland and giggled, “Sierra, why don’t you go grab me and Olli some juice, I think we got this”

I rolled my eyes and went towards the fridge. I pulled out some Gatorade for Olli and V8 for Carmen. I went back to the table and sat down. Carmen took her V8 and started drinking. I sighed as I picked up my part of the wreath and continued to weave.

***

“Aaaand...done!” Olli exclaimed. The wreath was finally finished. I moved my fingers around and shook my wrists, they were cramping pretty badly. 

“Great, I’m basically done with the garland too. I ran out of room on the yarn so they’re a few leaves still leftover” Carmen said.

I stopped shaking out my hands and looked over at the leaves. I had an idea.

“Hey wait, Carmen can I borrow the leftover leaves?” I asked.

“Sure why?” she replied.

“You’ll see” I picked up 3 different leaves and grabbed a permanant marker. I wrote “Sierra” on an orange leaf, “Carmen” on a red leaf, and “Olli” and a yellow leaf.

“There” I said, and held up the leaves for Carmen and Olli to see.

“That’s cool...but what exactly are they for?” Carmen asked.

“To put on our bedroom doors! Duh” I nudged her in the arm.

“Oh oh oh! That makes sense” Olli quickly grabbed her leaf and ran into her room. 2 seconds later she reappeared with some sparkly tape. She cut off a piece of tape and taped her leaf on her bedroom door. She handed me the tape roll and I did the same. 

“Oh I get it” Carmen took a bit of tape and taped her leaf on her door as well.

“Great! Now we can hang up all our other decoration!” Olli said. We all went back to the table. Olli carried the wreath while Carmen and I carefully held the garland.

“Where are we gonna put this?” Carmen asked.

“How about we put it over the couch?” I suggested.

Carmen shrugged and went over to the living room with me. 

Olli set down the wreath and pulled up a chair for us. Then she ran to her room and returned with a hot pink stapler. 

“Ok then...going up” Carmen climbed onto the chair with one end of the garland. She moved her end over the left side of the couch. Olli handed her the stapler, and Carmen stapled the garland in place.

Carmen jumped down and moved so I could get on the chair. I did the same thing, except on the right side. Once I was done I stepped off the cahir and moved it back uner the table.

“Wow it looks great!” Carmen studied our work.

“Yup. Now we have to hang up our wreath!” Olli said.

She moved to the front door and stepped outside, holding it open so Carmen and I could follow.

Luckily there was a little nail looking thing on our door, perfect for hanging the wreath. Carmen had to hang it up because Olli was so short, but she didn’t mind. I pulled out my phone and quickly took a picture of the wreath. Mom would love to see it. 

We all headed inside and flopped on the couch, well Carmen and I did. Olli raced to her room, and she was in there for a while. From time to time we could hear her sighing, dropping something, or mumbling to herself. Finally, she reemerged from her room with some bright orange fairy lights.

“When did you even get those?” Carmen asked.

“Oh from the “Arts in our Hearts” festival. But I guess because I bought so much stuff you didn’t see these. I was waiting to use them when fall arrived, and now I can!” Olli explained. 

“Ok then. Where are you gonna put them?” I asked.

“Riiight…” Olli looked around the room as she held the “i” sound.

“There!” she pointed to the table “We can hang them right over our table!” 

She hung the fairy lights over the kitchen table. “Hey Google, dim the lights please,” Olli said.

The little Google Home mini Carmen bought for her birthday responded with an “Ok, dimming the lights”

The lights dimmed and Olli turned on the fairy lights. It literally looked like a bunch of orange stars floating above the kitchen table.

“Oh wow,” Carmen whispered.

“Cool!” I said. 

“Ok Google, lights back on please” Olli said.

She joined us on the couch and grabbed her phone. She opened her camera and snapped a few pictures of our dorm. The new signs on our doors, the fairy lights, and then she went outside to snap a pic of the wreath.

“You were right Olli” Carmen said a she came back into the room, “Decorating was actually a lot of fun”

“Told ya so” Olli said, and settled back onto the couch. Fall decorating was over for now, which meant we could chill and watch Netflix all we wanted.