How to Super-Suite Your Dorm Room
Wednesday, September 30, 2009 by Kelly Sutton ;)
4 beds, 1 room
Last week, reader Ben Torell submitted his desk setup for our regular Featured Desk Space feature. He also mentioned something in his email I think deserves its own separate post. I had debated about doing this my sophomore year, but never quite got around to it with my roommates. It's called "super-suiting."
Many schools have "suite-style" dorms: two regular dorm rooms connected by a shared bathroom. At LMU, all sophomore housing has a suite-style setup. It's a certain "Congratulations! You don't have to share a shower with 30 other people" from your institution. The budding college hacker will think, Hey, I can optimize this space. And thus, super-suiting was born.
;)
2 desks, other room
Super-suiting your room separates your entire suite into discrete tasks. You move all 4 beds into one room and then leave the now-empty room as a workspace or living room. Moving all 4 beds into one room will inevitably require them to be bunked.
To some, this might just be reorganizing an already-claustrophobia-inducing suite into another claustrophobia-inducing configuration. For others, this might be the solution you have your roommates have been looking for to get some studying done.
There are two potential problems with this setup, though. At many universities, this is strictly prohibited in the community handbook. That's never stopped you before, though. Also, if you're planning on bringing members of the opposite sex (or same, we don't judge) back to the room you could run into some difficulties. Rather than sexiling one person, you would potentially be sexiling three. That's just not cool. But let's face it: we're nerds, so the probably of such an event is negligible.
Have you super-suited your suite or apartment? Send some pictures to room@hackcollege.com!
Reader Comments (2)
What a genius idea. I never lived in a dorm, but this would be an awesome way to really gtd!
I had four friends that did this with their two dorm rooms, and about halfway through the semester the university found out and made them move it all back. However, it was two rooms rather than a suite. I'd just suggest that anyone thinking about doing this with more than one assigned living space ask first, otherwise it could turn out to be a real pain!