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Starting with a disco ball. I'd pick up a styrofoam ball at a craft store, You can use a drill, or just a drill bit to auger small holes into it, then recess some Christmas lights into the holes. Use a hot glue gun to secure them. Wrap it with clear plastic, make holes for the lights, mask them off to spray paint your choice of colors.

An alternative to disco balls I've seen was using coat hangars, and old AOL installation CD's to make a mobile. If you paint the top sides of the with a metallic paint from Home Depot, it should glitter and refract light nicely when there's a light source on it.

Just as a thought, I've known plenty of art students who would give you the piece just for buying supplies so they could practice.

Bonsai and other plants aren't that expensive or difficult to maintain.

Try a flea market. Neat looking old bottles should be pretty cheap and will also do an excellent job of refracting light.

Toss in a few throw rugs from yard sales, and you should be set.

D

You need queer eye for the tans guy.

First off, fung shui the furniture to form a sitting area apart from the kitchen area. Take advantage of natural light. Cover the ceiling light with some kind of fabric to soften the hard interior, like some kind of printed sheet. Drape it a bit, think Arabian Knights over the sitting area. A few well placed knick knacks and some kind of yard sale carpet and I think your good to go.

EDIT: A disco ball? Oh pullease. I simply can't work with a disco ball, unless.....how about a lighted ceiling unit that spins like a disco ball but is full of goldfish?

A floor lamp is your best friend. Particularly one with either a colored bulb or colored shade to it so you have colored light! That's how I battled white walls in my college apartments.

A cork board with pictures on it... or if you don't want to shell out for one of those, get some cardboard and fabric and staple them together and it's just as good if you put the fabric on tight enough.

Make your own posters with poster board from the dollar store. It's way cheaper than buying posters that everyone already has seen.

You can make bean bag chairs out of shredded paper. Somewhere on campus there's bound to be a shredder, and it'll be filled with bags. You figure out when it gets emptied and ask the person in charge if you can have the bag. When you get home you let a lot of the air out of the bag, and then double bag it if you can... wrap it in some more cheap fabric and you have a bean bag chair... of paper.

That's pretty much what I did... and bright colors! When the accessories in your place are bright colors it all looks better too.

Go garbage picking and see if you find some furniture that's been thrown out. Some times you get lucky and find something nice. I'd say look at magazines that focus on interior design, or even ikea catalogs just so you can get an idea as to what you want. Do you have a bed, or a futon?

Really, just look around and try to find something that fits.

well first cover up the plain walls with pictures, not art b/c art goes well with colored walls so pictures are best and dont mix and black and white pictures with color, choose one. wood floors go good with a black or red rug depending on the color of the wood. furniture should match the carpet(but you dont have any).

from what u described it dose not let you work with it so id just find a better place when you get a steady job.

Strip the paint off the bricks to expose the natural brick color and use vine like plants around.

I'm thinking disco ball.

Lava lights, disco balls, black light posters,beads hanging in doorways.

mission impossible!!!