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January
30, 2004 |
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Cool Rooms
By Lee Ann Sandweiss
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This year's grand prize winners, freshmen Julia Cuzzupe of North Vernon
and Jenn Lockridge of Butlerville have been friends since
the second grade. Their decade-long friendship was fortuitous
to pull off the theme of their room-homage to favorite cartoon
characters from childhood. Just when you can't stop staring
at the Rubby Ducky shower curtain they fashioned into window
treatment, your eyes are drawn to Julia's extensive My Little
Pony collection. But wait! Isn't that Strawberry Shortcake,
Care Bears and the Smurfs? It is! Stepping into their prize-winning
room is like stepping into an '80s time warp permanently set
on the cartoon channel, and it's so much fun you never want
to leave.
The room of IU sophomore Catherine Orzel, of West Simsbury,
Conn., a theatre and criminal justice double major, exhibits
her aspirations to stardom-from the twinkling star lights on
the ceiling, to the collection of show posters on the wall (with
one from Cats acquired when she was in the third grade!),
to the exquisite star quilt that adorns the bed, to a wall of
black-and-white stills of everyone from Chaplin to Travolta.
Even her glitzy silver lamé bedskirt seems theatrical.
Take a bow for your cool room, Catherine!
Marki Perkins of Greencastle is a sophomore majoring
in communications and a thrift store aficionado. Perkins transformed
her tiny, characterless room into a vibrant, cozy lair with
bargain finds and lots of imagination. Her small sofa, picked
up for $20 at Goodwill, looks inviting with its new homemade
slipcover. A quirky '50s end table got a facelift with some
black and red enamel. On a frigid January morning, the hot pink-and-black
feather boa on her windowsill is a welcome touch of whimsy.
"It's more colorful than a plant," she explained,
"and it doesn't need water."
Alana Shipley, a freshman from Cincinnati, Ohio, has
loved the cartoon character Tweety Bird since third grade and
the color purple even longer than that. Her cool room is a vibrant
shrine to these two passions: an interactive Tweety mood poster
adorns the outside of the entrance door and gets regular visits
from fellow residents, while inside a neat, hand-stenciled print
of purple hearts and flowers bedecks every inch of living space.
Alana says she didn't know about the cool rooms contest, but
everyone who saw her room said she should enter it. She wisely
took their advice!
Freshman Erin Daugherty of Carmel spent months thinking
of the theme for her room, but it was time well spent. The stunning
results are a sophisticated blend of what she calls "European
elegance and New York design." She used a trio of mirrors
to make the room seem larger and a sleek, stainless steel wall
unit to keep the room clutter-free. The stack of chic hat boxes
conceals personal items, like make-up and accessories. A portrait
of Marilyn Monroe-Erin's favorite actress-adorns one wall. This
is indeed a room with class and style worthy of a screen goddess!
Allison Beck, a freshman from Indianapolis, credits her
mother's decorating talents for creating her inviting room.
Most prominent among Allison's mom's many contributions are
the huge fabric-covered photo boards that hold dozens of pictures
of friends and family members. A bit of bamboo here, a life-size
tree there and a blender for this vegetarian to whip up protein
shakes-no wonder Beck's home-away-from-home is a winner!
Friends since middle school, Heather Hzul and Dana
Wilkins, both freshmen from Highland, decided the theme
of their room at IU on their spring break to Key West during
their senior year of high school: a tribute to Jimmy Buffet's
Margaritaville. The result of their collaboration and
carefully selected bric-a-brac is a tropical island paradise-complete
with a grass skirt for a window shade and a crazy lamp made
by a high-school friend that screams Gilligan's Island kitsch!
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IU Home Pages + 400 E. 7th Street. Bloomington, IN 47405 + Phone: (812) 855-6494
Publication Date: January 30, 2004 + Comments: homepgs@indiana.edu
Copyright ©2003, The Trustees of Indiana University
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