Dorm Room Privacy

I looked around online for ways to give my son some privacy in his new dorm room. We signed up for a two person room and started with a three person assignment. My son met a kid on our tour and they both wanted two person so now they’re going to be roommates.

They still don’t know each other, but they got to put their two cents in for the number assigned to live in the room. The third kid hasn’t been assigned yet, but we called and no one is getting a two person room this semester. The original third roommate dropped off, but was quickly replaced with another one. My son’s college has record freshman enrollment this year. (Today we dropped off my son and met the parents and the other two students in the dorm. We’re really happy that my son ended up with some really great guys.)

Even though you can put three beds, 3 dressers, a desk for each, a fridge and a microwave in these rooms: that does not leave room for much of anything else.

Also, my son is completely not interested in changing in front of other guys. There’s a private bathroom in this dorm room, which ended up being a great feature for him. However, if one person is studying and another one is trying to sleep, there’s not a lot of privacy whether it’s two or three kids in this room. With my son double majoring I’m assuming he’s going to have a lot more late nights than the rest of the kids.

The room ended up being much bigger than the diagram, but there’s an air conditioner and wifi on the wall. There’s still not a lot of space for chairs etc.

As I was googling dorm ideas I saw a pvc cage, with drapes, that a dad built online. It wasn’t quite what we needed, but: I am always building frames, with pvc. (I make these for fruit trees in my garden.) So, this idea was really easy for me to put together in my head.

The instructions we saw, didn’t leave the kid much privacy on the top bunk. So, I knew we needed more space at the top. We also bought him foldable bookcases. So when we drop him off, this will be quick to set up. The bookcases are for his computer and phone, because: I know my kid, and he’s going to bring those up into the bed.

Beds at his college are lofted. I measured the height earlier this year when we were on a tour. I also googled xl twin bed dimensions. The xl twin is the size of the mattress, not the frame. We’re adding space around the bed and bringing our ratcheting pvc pipe cutter, to get the fit perfect: on site.

I have worked with pvc glue and primer before. The stuff is really stinky and I didn’t want to do that to my kid and his roommates. I found a low VOC conduit glue. I know from a lot of experience, unless you’re running water though the pipes: you don’t need primer. Whether the pipe dope for conduit will work on pvc remains a mystery. I guess we’ll find out! (I looked this up, it will work.)

I bought four 52″x95″ black out drapes (make sure you match both of these measurements!) that are hung with rings, from temu. (which is where most of his dorm stuff came from. Watch out on that site. The products are the same as what Amazon has, but cheaper. However: temu has games and “deals” that I recommend skipping because those are mostly scams. Watch the “add to cart” button too because it will switch to “buy cart now” and I have had several orders I’ve had to cancel and then wait several days for a refund. You can get good stuff on there but you can also get scammed with the “extras” they have.)

My son will only need two sides of the bed covered because of the walls, so just the four pack I got of these black out drapes, will work. If we had another side open, I’d get a fifth drape. (Note: we did end up with a third opening, but it’s only about a foot wide and is the extra length from the two 24″ wide bookcases. He can hang something over that spot if he gets too shy to change his shirt. 🙄)

So, since the mattress max height was 60″ both the two bookshelves and the black out drape frame will sit quite a ways above the mattress. This gives him both shelves and privacy.

We also bought him room odor absorbers (Because: teenage boys! Of course! Plus, his roommate plays football. I’m sure there will be stinky gear and all three kids will have their giant stinky shoes, etc.)  We also got him a sleep mask and earplugs. I think he’s going to be fine, as far as sound, boy stink and light goes.

He didn’t want a fan or white noise machine. We’ll see if that changes. (It did, he went to his dorm with one of our mini air purifiers we have around the house, to mitigate allergies.)

We have a “no damage” policy for hanging things in the dorm. Most bed privacy instructions would not work at our school because most instructions drill or glue stuff into walls or ceilings. Pvc (as per my usual structural answers), is the way to go!

Hopefully, he doesn’t fall out of his lofted bed. He’s pretty klutsy and he will need to go under the pipe on the end to get off the bed.

On a tangent: My best friend in high school had a sister that fell out of the lofted bunk at her college. She hit her head and had major brain damage. She had to relearn how to walk. I don’t think she ever completely got over it. I got a toddler pillow that you would have to roll up and over, to fall out of this bed. Hopefully that’s good enough. I know he’d probably hate a toddler bunk bed rail.

Anyway these are the directions for the bed frame, the ratcheting pipe cutter link and the low VOC glue link. This will be held to the bed with velcro straps. I ran an extra support on the long end of the bed to keep it from sagging. It should be really sturdy.

You will need 10 1 inch x 10 foot pvc pipe. You should Google dimensions of the size bed that is in the dorm. This is what we found for an XL Twin: 80 inches long by 38 inches wide. This is just the mattress dimensions, so we added 2.5 inches on each of the sides and front to, hopefully, accommodate the frame. You can always take more off, but you have to start over if it’s too short.

For connectors there’s 4 L Shape pieces, like this:

4 3-way 90° connectors

2 T shape connectors (for the mid length support on the front.)

All fittings need to match your pipe diameter. 1 inch pipe is sturdy and there’s plenty of connector choices, including color furniture grade pieces. Go bigger and you will spend a whole lot more on this project, plus your fitting choices may need to be special ordered. Go smaller and it won’t hold up to use. BTW we accidentally bought a couple of lower psi (220 psi) pipes. They buckled when we dry fitted the pvc frame. We had to replace them with thicker ones (450 psi). Also colored pvc comes in 5′ lengths. You will need more connectors for those.

I measured our max extension for the loft beds our school has (while on one of the tours.) Our particular lofted bed goes up to 60 inches. With 95 inches in the height of the pipes/drapes, that makes the above bed privacy, 35 inches above the frame. That’s plenty to slide the drape out of the way and get out of bed underneath the pipe.

My son wanted to paint the pvc black, so that’s what we did. I tried two methods. One: I painted everything on a tarp. I could only get one side at a time and had a bunch of spots to patch. Second: I drove some rebar (I am always using rebar in my garden) into the ground and set the pipes on them. I had 360° coverage and the paint went a lot further.

Build and assemble this before you go to your school, mark it, write it all down on a sheet of paper and take all of that with you if you aren’t used to making weird projects, by sight, all the time. If you don’t have a pickup: between the 95″ pvc pipes and the two 75″ bookcases, we had to rent a little uhaul trailer.

When you assemble this at home, check your drapes to see if you need more than 4 drapes. We still have one or two sets of drapes we could have used. But, they came from temu and I knew it would take too long to ship. I also ironed his drapes, because I am that mom. Actually, I did a whole bunch of little craft things and time wasters, because I didn’t want to deal with the empty nest thoughts.

Tape ends of pipe, so when you paint: those raw pvc ends will be what the glue grabs, instead of paint. (Alternatively, buy everything in the color you prefer.) I would lay everything out before you put it in your vehicle and put some of the ends on, or label the unpainted ends so this is not stressful to put together. Be mindful that this glue is really thin and runny. If you put too much on and it gets on the floor you could be the reason they stop letting kids build these.

Don’t glue this together, even at the dorm, if you decide you need more drapes. You can’t undo glued ends to add any more.

Here’s the before pictures:

Here’s painting, the first way:

The end of the project:

I met his roommates. They are really great kids. I told my son he should offer to build these across campus for the price of materials and his time. He should be an expert at this by winter break!

My son is double majoring in ministry and engineering. He’s also an Eagle Scout who’s been to Philmont a few times. I ordered the engineering flowchart plaque on Etsy and we used a wire plate display support under it (or just buy a poster, wayyyy cheaper!)

We also hung a large, framed map of Philmont with command/3M brand picture hangers.

(The command/3m hangers will not damage walls.) I even made a door stop from a piece of the eagle scout project/golf cart bridge from hell.

We’re so happy we finished that eagle project and he can show people what he made. Definitely going to do something less stressful with my younger boy though!

Every door we passed in his dorm was open with one of these, made with raw wood and written on with marker. My son has his own, very personal, doorstop. I’d show you the third side but his name and dorm room number are on there!

My kids are solid, Christian, young men. Having worship service as a requirement, keeps the whole student body cohesive and on the right track. You can make unique and lasting friendships, when everyone is based on the same belief structure. Everyone is starting from about the same place.

Enjoy your quiet (and a little lonely) parent’s first semester, that’s ahead. While your child enjoys their privacy, as they go on to new adventures and enter their grown up life. Go wildcats!

Crazy Green Thumbs