While moving away to college for the first time can come with a lot of excitement, it can also be kind of bittersweet. You’re leaving behind the world you’ve always known - the people you’ve been friends with for your entire life up until this point, your family, your pets, and your routine. Life as you know it is about to be disrupted in ways that are sure to make you more uncomfortable than you’ve ever been before, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make the most of it.

While you’re trying to figure out how to adjust to your new life as a college student living in a dorm room you’ll probably have to share with another person and a bathroom you’ll have to share with thirty others, you might feel a little lost without everything familiar to you right at your fingertips. This year, then, we suggest doing what you can to dress up your dorm room to make it feel a little more like home. Penn State is well-known for its strong sense of community, so we have a feeling that it will start feeling like its own piece of home soon enough.

Until then, though, here are six products to help your Penn State dorm room feel a little bit more like home:

Whether you want to proudly display old memories or hang up new ones as they come around, a Hangit Photo Display will be there to help you every step of the way.

1. Hangit Photo Display

One of the most difficult things to come to terms with when you move away from home is that it’s going to be some time before you see your best friends and family again. You might have a tough time adjusting to life without them at first, but soon enough, you’ll start collecting new friends who will eventually feel like family, too. Maybe you’ll meet them in class or the dining hall. Maybe you’ll meet them at the first meeting of the club you’ve been dying to join. Maybe they’ll be your roommate and a couple other people you meet on your dorm room floor.

Until you find your new family at Penn State, however, there’s nothing wrong with holding onto the memories you share with your friends and family from back home. To make your Penn State dorm room feel more like home this year, invest in a Hangit Photo Display to relive all of your greatest memories. You can easily hang this display up at the beginning of the year and use the clips to show off your favorite memories. As you make more with your new Penn State family throughout the year, feel free to switch some of them out!

2. Peel and Stick Wallpaper

When you  first move into your Penn State dorm room, you might be wondering how you could possibly turn such a small and bland space into something that feels like home. You’re going to be faced with white cinder blocks, a pair of raised beds, a pair of desks, and a pair of wardrobes. With such a standard, regimented space in front of you, you might have to think a bit outside the box when it comes to decorating your space. Not everyone knows what to do with a blank canvas.

Luckily, there’s a very simple and very effective way to personalize your Penn State dorm room and make it feel more homey: peel and stick wallpaper. Sometimes the best way to make a dorm room feel a little more like home is to add some color to a wall. Now, obviously, you can’t slap some actual paint on your dorm room wall, but peel and stick wallpaper is an easy solution. This bold bohemian print could become the accent wall that will make your dorm room stand out among the rest in the dorm. Just make sure you’ve cleaned any dirt off of your wall, peel off the adhesive backing, and stick the adhesive side of the wallpaper to your wall.

3. Armored Dorm Wardrobe Trunk

Can you really call a place home if it doesn’t include some funky object for you to store some of your belongings in? We’ve all got one. Why not dress up your Penn State dorm room with something that’s both fashionable and functional. While you can certainly fit most of your clothes into the wardrobe that is provided to you, they are kind of small. You may find yourself wanting for just a little more storage space to keep some of your clothes. 

Invest in an Armored Dorm Wardrobe Trunk for a little extra storage space if you find yourself packing more clothes than you know what to do with. It has the perfect amount of space for you to store a few sweaters or your shoes if you don’t want to trip over them - and it’s adorable, to boot! You can prop it up next to your wardrobe or underneath your raised bed and keep it closed when you don’t need anything from it. Even better, it’s the kind of decor that you can carry with you even after you graduate!

Nothing says home quite like a fuzzy, plush place to rest your head when you grow tired.

4. Chubby Faux Fur Pillows

What’s better than one fluffy pillow? Two fluffy pillows! Decorative pillows are the hallmark of any home. In fact, you know you’ve made it when you have more than the standard amount of pillows - including some that you can you can incorporate as a piece of decor, rather than as something functional (although there’s nothing wrong with using it functionally, too)! So this year, why not get a head start on the milestones of adulthood by grabbing a pair of Chubby Faux Fur Pillows for your Penn State dorm room?

These vibrant blue pillows will be a standout accent in any dorm room. Fluffy, chubby, and stuffed with the comfort of a warm hug, you’ll definitely want this pair of pillows to keep around in your room. You can hold one close while you sleep if you find yourself missing your pets from back home, or you can just choose to throw them off the bed before you untuck it for every night. Oh yeah - the best thing about having some decorative pillows in your decor arsenal: they’ll encourage you to make your bed every day!

5. Faux Fur Cube Ottoman

Home is where you have a place to rest your feet when you’re feeling weary. Let’s face it: you’re going to be really tired for the next four years. Between going to classes, trying to keep up with all of your coursework, hanging out with your new friends, attending club meetings or sports practices, and remembering to eat, you’re probably going to miss out on a lot of sleep. Some weeks are going to be more exhausting than others. To make a space for yourself where you can relax after a long week, you’ll want to include some decor that will really make it feel like home.

To bring the ultimate feeling of home to your Penn State dorm room this year, you’ll definitely want to get yourself a Faux Fur Cube Ottoman for you to rest your feet on after a long day. Whether you just want to keep it in a corner to pull out and use with your desk chair whenever you need it or you’ve brought a spare chair along with you and want to keep your ottoman in one stationary place, this one is a great pick. As both a comfy resting place for your feet and a fashionable piece to add to your decor, this ottoman is a great way to make your dorm room feel a little more like home.

Every morning in a home should start with a cup of coffee (or tea or hot chocolate). A Keurig can help you out with that.

6. K-Select™ Brewer with Storage Drawer

Are you looking for a really simple way to make your Penn State dorm room feel like home this year? Sometimes it really can be as simple as having a set place where you can drink a cup of coffee every day before you start your morning every day. While you could certainly decide to make that place your local Starbucks, it’s quite an expensive routine for you to have as a college student. What would be much more cost efficient (and also help you make your dorm room become a little more homey) is to be able to make a cup of coffee right there in your dorm room.

Now, the chances of you being able to make an entire pot of coffee right within the comfort of your Penn State dorm room are pretty slim (a majority of them come with hot plates, which aren’t allowed in most dorm rooms), there are still ways for you to do it. If you invest in one of Keurig’s K-Select™ Brewers with a Storage Drawer, you can easily make a cup of coffee in the comfort of your dorm room. All you need are some K-cups - and you can store them in the storage drawer that comes with this baby!

When you move into your Penn State dorm room this fall, you might be wondering how it could possibly live up to the comfort and love you felt while you were still living at home. The great thing about Penn State (all of its branches), however, is that they really do make an effort to foster a community where you’ll have people to turn to whenever you need them - just like a family. Until you meet those people, though, fill up your dorm room with some of these products to make it feel a little more like home.