How to turn a Student House into a Home: Interview with SDP Student Homes
We recently teamed up with SDP Student Homes, a Sheffield based student homes provider, to give the students who live in their homes tips and advice on how to make their space personal and homely. Creativity and originality is important to use all, and making a house a home shouldn’t cost the earth. Students, or non-students alike can make small changes that make a big difference. We answered SDP Student Homes 5 questions on how to make your creative space unique to you.
Can you give our tenants some easy hacks to make their student bedrooms their own?
Home furnishings can easily transform a room, and are an inexpensive way to incorporate your individual style. Adding some scatter cushions to the bed and a rug to the end of the bed will add focus and make a space feel more inviting, homely and personal to the individual. Adding photos and artwork personal to the individual will immediately bring a sense of comfort and home, a gallery wall arrangement is a great way to display it. Always group artwork/ photography together, and position it above the bed or chest of drawers as this creates a more cohesive feel and prevents too many focus points around the room.
What can our tenants do to create a productive workspace to get them in the zone?
Lighting is very important. Natural light is great, but if the room isn’t blessed with much natural light then good task lighting is essential. A lamp on the desk can make a huge difference to how useable the space is. Make sure there is a separate workspace, and when student’s only have one room which is their own, make sure that they have an area specifically for work/study which includes some practical storage such as space saving wall shelves so the student can be organised with their work files etc, and it can be cleared away when they are finished in order to be able to break away from their work without it being on view.
What do you think is the most common mistake landlords make when furnishing and decorating properties?
Not having the individual tenant in mind, they are providing a basic, often neutral generic accommodation when most people want some form of home comfort. Most landlords do not think about the light coming into the room and choosing warm or cool colours accordingly and this can have a massive impact on mental wellbeing within a space. Including comfortable furniture should be priority for this also. Often furniture may just need repositioning, try avoid pushing all furniture up to the wall and create more social areas by grouping the seating in a slightly different way.
What tips would you give to any aspiring young designers?
If you are passionate about creating spaces and have the ability to adapt to a brief and different settings then start by building your knowledge of materials available. Instagram and pinterest are great for ideas, but dig a little deeper and find the source of the images that excite you. Be prepared for hard work, not all aspects of the job are glamourous, but seeing an idea come to life at the end of a project makes it all worthwhile! A good way to get a feel for the reality of the industry is to work along side and assist an experienced designer whilst getting your qualifications. You will then be in a good position having had first hand experience to start promoting your own design and project management skills.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
Exhibitions are a great way to get to see new and exciting products that can be incorporated into designs. There is so much visual inspiration for everyone to access now on social media, this is a great way to keep in touch with suppliers too. Some projects have a very strong brief and inspiration can be drawn from an individual piece of art of furniture and the rest can fall into place around it, and likewise, the clients personal and individual taste plays a big part in residential design.
