Texas Students Are Buying Into the Luxury Dorm Room Trend

Earlier this month at Texas Christian University, a select group was allowed into campus housing a week before the official move-in period. Days before anxious parents and eager freshmen showed up with their luggage, pillows, and supplies, interior designers and their installation teams had already done their thing, transforming small, poorly lit cinder block rooms into spaces worthy of big reveals on TikTok—custom oases awash in pleated curtains, lacquered cabinets, flowing bed skirts, and original artwork.

Chief among the early entrants was Shannan Bower, a longtime Fort Worth designer with her own studio. Last year she began offering both prepackaged designs and custom and installation services. This year her company has a contract with TCU as a preferred vendor; the school markets Shannan Bower Home’s Heritage Dorm Collection, her line of bedding bundles and other decor items, to new students at orientation. Bower is just one of many Texas designers who are taking the designer dorm trend of the past few years to a whole new level while also creating new business models.

At a time when college tuition rates have hit all-time highs (a typical year at TCU can run a student around $86,000, including housing, meals, and other necessities), shelling out thousands of dollars on a room that will be occupied for nine months might seem impractical at best, ludicrous at worst. But Bower, who also has a lot of clients at Southern Methodist University (where one year can run a student around $96,000), says demand for her custom services outpaced that for her more economical packages this year. “We get a lot of comments on social media about these kids being coddled,” she says. “That’s the world that high-net-worth people live in. Those are our clients.”  

Another preferred vendor at TCU is DFW Dorms & Beyond, founded last year by Amy Adams after she and her husband grew frustrated while sourcing materials for their daughter’s dorm. Theirs is one of the only businesses shipping custom dorm furniture nationwide. Clients can choose from several packages varying in cost and involvement level; the top package, a turnkey service, starts at $2,499 and includes a full dorm design, delivery management, and installation. “Some people are very budget-conscious and just need help with the process,” Adams says. However, “we typically service high-net-worth clients,” she says, “and a majority of the people coming to us are first-time clients sending their first child off to college.”

Most designers say the most common reason clients hire a professional designer for their child’s dorm room is to have a sense of control over their child’s well-being. “The parents want to provide everything they can so that in their hearts they feel like their child is safe and taken care of and has all the comforts of home,” Bower says. “Your mainstream retailers like Pottery Barn and LoveShackFancy are going to help, but students still want the personalization. Gone are the days of ripping a magazine page out or taking a poster and calling it a day. They take these spaces seriously.”

The designer-dorm explosion came on the heels of the social media frenzy around sorority recruitment that started during the COVID-19 pandemic. The viral TikToks from SEC sororities offered a window into a South that many Americans had never glimpsed; followers became obsessed with the spectacles of expensive outfits, choreographed dance routines, and interpersonal drama. Then viewers started noticing the rooms in the women’s videos. “As each year passes and the girls look on social media, they’re able to see how this has become almost an expectation at a lot of colleges,” says Shelly Gates, owner of Mary Margaret Designs, a Mississippi-based company that installs dorm rooms across the South and in Texas, including at SMU and the University of Texas at Austin. Gates quickly became one of the most well-known dorm designers after going viral for charging up to $20,000 for a room, which includes the cost of furniture, design fees, and installation services.

Just a few years ago, Gates was a fourth-grade teacher. After she designed her daughter’s freshman dorm room, she posted photos on social media. Buoyed by the response, she began a summer business designing dorms. Demand became so great that she left the classroom in 2024 and turned Mary Margaret Designs into a full-time business.

Texas universities are a nucleus of the dorm trend, and many of the in-demand designers cater to families in the wealthy suburbs of Dallas–Fort Worth. But some budget-minded designers have recognized an opportunity to help freshmen at a fraction of the cost. Ro Rynd, of Dallas-based Ro Miller Rynd Interiors, a designer for 25 years, recently began installing custom dorms for the children of clients whose homes she’s designed. With her wholesale discounts and industry knowledge, Rynd is able to provide luxury furniture options at lower market rates. She also encourages clients to choose items that can be used later in apartments or first homes. For example, a common dorm design hack is to size up bedding to a queen size for a standard twin bed, which both creates a luxurious oversized look and makes an expensive duvet more cost-effective because it can be used in a student’s next living space.

But not every purchase can transition so easily. One piece of furniture that pops up over and over in luxury dorm rooms is the refrigerator cabinet—an oversized piece usually designed with carved paneling and decorative pulls that is used to hide away a minifridge (as well as, in some cases, a microwave and other kitchen appliances). Popularized via social media, the cabinets retail for $499 at Pottery Barn or, for a customized option based on specific measurements, up to $2,475 at DFW Dorms & Beyond.

A hutch over a university-supplied desk is Rynd’s must-have. “Giving someone three more shelves and a mirror station adds so much storage,” she says. Adams at DFW Dorms designed a narrow custom shelf to sit on the wall side of a bed, adding storage in an otherwise unused space. Designers also rely a lot on lighting: Rechargeable sconces that stick to the wall, remote-operated cordless chandeliers, and puck lights in dark closets all brighten a small space and add flair.

Designers who create multiple custom looks at the same university also have another challenge: making sure each room stands out. For a Palm Springs–themed room at SMU, Gates cut a pool umbrella in half and hung each flush side on the wall. Rynd has used horsehair rugs for a cowgirl theme. Says Bower: “We all want our rooms to be specific, so someone can say, ‘Oh, that’s a Shannan Bower design.’ ”

Beyond wholesale discounts and reusable purchases, it’s difficult to reduce the price of a custom room. That’s where entirely virtual services fill the void between turnkey services and no help at all. Kristen Garza, a stay-at-home mother in Frisco with a knack for DIY projects and the founder of the Mind for Design social media account, began focusing on virtual dorm design this past spring. It now has more than 35,000 followers on Instagram and dozens of clients. For a flat $199 fee, Garza provides a complete portfolio of links to order items featured in one of her custom, AI-assisted renderings. From there, customers pick which items they want to purchase and handle delivery and installation themselves. “It ranges, but I don’t have anyone saying they are going over two thousand dollars,” she says.

Most of Garza’s links, for items such as storage ottomans, wallpaper, and headboards, lead to more-affordable retailers like Amazon, Marshalls, and TJ Maxx. She buys many of her recommended items and tests them with her daughter before promoting them. “My job is to make a very small, very temporary space feel functional and personal,” she says.

Budget-friendly options like Garza’s are a good thing for the many students across the state who want just a little help with their first home away from home without the tuition-level price tag.