This is the second in a back to school shopping series of that will appear on Fridays on The Daily Orange website until the fall semester starts. The series is designed to help students and parents weigh the prices and benefits of various dorm room necessities and accessories.

In a space as tiny as your dorm room, bedding is the central piece of decor. It determines the color scheme of the room and can elevate any dorm from bland and boring to a stylish living space. Thankfully, there is no shortage of fun and trendy bedding options on a low budget. Bedding as we define it in this guide includes sheets, pillows, pillow cases, comforters and blankets — anything you’d purchase to put on your bed. Check out some of the Pulp staff’s recommendations for where to shop for these dorm essentials at a range of prices.

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Residence Hall Linens

Pros: RHL is the ideal dorm room retailer for anyone who needs to purchase many all-new items in bedding and bath before coming to school. To buy bedding from RHL, the best deal is to purchase one of their value packs. The value packs come with two to 27 individual pieces. The Complete Campus Pak comes with 24 pieces, from sheets to towels to storage containers. That option saves $104.20 compared to the total from purchasing its items individually.

Cons: RHL is not for you if you only plan on buying sheets and a comforter. The price of their bedding packages are steep if you need a little, but a steal if you need a lot. For the value packs to be worth it, make sure you need just about all of the items included.

Featured Item: Complete Campus Pak $200

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Bed Bath & Beyond

Pros: One of the best features of doing shopping at BB&B is that there’s no need to stuff your car trunk with a million pillows and blankets while you drive up to school. With their college registry program, you can purchase everything you need at a store convenient to your home and then pick them up at Syracuse’s store.

Cons: BB&B is not a small store. Prepare to be overwhelmed by the hundreds of products surrounding you while you go shopping. Also, as BB&B offers a wide variety of prices and options, it would help save time to research products online beforehand.

Featured Item: Nadia Reversible Comforter Set in Teal $59.99

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Dormify

Pros: Dormify is a great resource for those who would like to invest in a trendy dorm room. The website groups together its products into collections that create a stylish, unified bedding look together. They also have rooms put together that you can check out for all of the dorm decor inspiration you need.

Cons: The little pillows and wall tapestries that make the collections and rooms so fashionable are too expensive to realistically buy enough of them to create the looks.

Featured item: Buddha Pillow $36

Published on July 24, 2015 at 9:44 pm

Contact Alex: aerdekia@syr.edu