From Plain to Personal: Making My Room My Own

Hanna is an American student studying in Germany as part of the CBYX (Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange) scholarship exchange program.

My bedroom in the United States lacked personal touches. My bed was crammed into a corner, lazily topped with a sheet, blanket, and singular pillow. Across from the door, a low cabinet lay against the wall, the top empty. That was it. I liked my room plain: Having fewer items meant that I had less to dust and clean. My sheets could easily be replaced without waging a battle against numerous duvets and covers. The walls may look plain, but the bedroom was a place to sleep, not a museum. 

Fast forward a couple of months to living in Germany. My room was largely the same, plain space. I thought that was fitting. After my exchange year, my bedroom could easily be converted back into another workspace. While showing my house to one of my German friends after school, I expected to just have a cursory tour of my room before going downstairs to bake cookies. Instead, my friend exclaimed about how impersonal and plain my room was. In her words, a bedroom was a place of comfort, and that was even more important as an exchange student living in a foreign country. 

Dragging me to the Woolworth and TEDi (the German versions of the Dollar Tree), she helped me choose several frames to paint on, and our baking plans were quickly replaced by a painting activity. In the end, we dedicated our paintings to a small corner above my bed. Standing back and admiring our paintings, a smile crept on the edges of my lips as I was reminded of the mess my friend and I made trying to paint the corners of the canvas.

From there, my room started to slowly fill with color. I added a plant to the corner of my desk. I bought a magnet board, filling it with notes and postcards from my family and friends. My favorite project was decorating a corkboard, gluing a soft pink fabric on top of the cork, and then personalizing the inside with cutouts of my favorite bands and Polaroids. I found myself sculpting air-dry clay glasses holders and making Miffy keychains out of felt. Sculpting my room helped me realize how proud I was of creating handmade decorations. My room turned from a practical space to a comforting one. 

Moving to Germany gave me the opportunity to change myself in ways I did not know, like helping me find and prioritize my artistic side. These small changes are something I look forward to embracing in my exchange year.