TASNEEM LUKMANJEE
Most college students in San Francisco do not have Snoop Dogg’s “Dogg House” or any of the other million dollar homes featured in early 2000s documentary television series “MTV Cribs.” Instead they occupy smaller pockets of the golden city that range from campus housing to Clement Street to NoPa.
Nestled in between Lone Mountain Main and the School of Education is USF’s most recent on-campus housing project, Lone Mountain East (LME). One LME apartment is home to Madison Sandifur, Sadie Berry, Mariah Parker and Maya Iniguez.
“We tried looking a little bit off campus and we realized that it was too difficult and genuinely thought that if we have this opportunity [to live on-campus] we might as well take it and not worry about finding a place until the following years,” said Berry, a sophomore international business major.
The girls decorated the apartment with care. “I brought little bits and pieces of things I liked from my hometown personally. I’m from Spokane, so I have a Spokane poster and a band poster from a concert I went to in my hometown,” said Sandifur, sophomore finance major, as she uses her arms to display her side of the shared room with Berry. The aforementioned “Strf kr” poster is framed next to a little sign in gold and blue lettering that said “Wish you were here, Spokane, Washington.” Both the girls stuck to a pastel color palette with pink and white bedding. A string of lights across the bed to the window and gold framed pictures hanging on Berry’s side of the room, the girls created a Glinda-like effect fit for a princess.
The room across the hall houses sophomores Parker and Iniguez, majoring in public health and biology respectively. “Our room is definitely more dark and a little mysterious and Sadie and Maddie’s room is pink, girlier, like frills” says Parker, referring to their large print of Van Gogh’s “Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette” and the Pink Floyd posters spanning the walls, backlit by their electric blue lava lamp.
Displayed on the standard wooden console in most LME apartments was a collection of brightly colored squishy shapes. “We have a huge NeeDoh collection. NeeDohs are like jelly stress toys, and they’re in different shapes,” explained Parker as she picked up one in the shape of a gum drop and started to pull on it. “We’re obsessed. It’s actually the highlight of our apartment. Everyone who comes in plays with the Needohs.”
Trying to stay near campus, many students live in the Inner Richmond neighborhood. Near Geary Street’s Little Sweet and Nizario’s is the home of Samantha King, Monica Gupta and Lena Banguetandet, who live in a four bedroom f lat. Banguetandet’s room, which features huge bay windows, a small golden chandelier and red brick fireplace, her room was full of typical San Franciscan charm, but the walls are painted a modern white and with a bright span of dark blue. Banguetandet’s minimalist aesthetic and select choice of furniture and decor leaves the space looking clean and classy.
In the center of their home is a bar cart they found on Facebook Marketplace. The cart is filled with hand-painted martini glasses, wine glasses and a shaker. Banguetandet, a senior advertising major, said King had creative control over the space, but Gupta, a junior philosophy major, contributed her own art. “The martini thing that’s above the bar cart? Monica made that. It’s actually a cutting board from the street she found, built and like did it herself,” said Banguetandet.
Cradled in the very back of the apartment is King’s room. Optimizing both space and style, her room had a distinctly pink theme from the rose bedding to the candy colored storage baskets. “My furniture is a mix of Facebook Marketplace, Ikea and Target,” said King, a senior international studies major. She chose to go off campus looking for a fresh start. “We lived in the dorms for two years and that era was just over,” said King as Banguetandet laughed.
In the heart of NoPa lives my roommate Lila Haon, a junior psychology major. “Personally I like to have a separation between work and home, or school and home. I also really wanted to decorate an apartment,” she said. Haon’s green and pink color palette is most evident in the living room, where a moss-colored velvet couch with coral throw pillows sat alongside ornate gold-outlined vintage chairs. “I just wanted it to be colorful, fun, cozy for sure. I’m definitely more of a maximalist than a minimalist, somewhere in the middle, I just don’t like a cold space, so warm lights, warm colors and good vibes.”
She repeated this color scheme in her bedroom, filling the space with hanging vines, oversized ferns, sage quilts and a matching large Persian rug. The walls are decorated with carefully curated posters and Haon’s own artwork, and light fittings ranging from LED lights to lamps. “I just leaned into colors I liked [for the room], and it’s kind of grown with me. But also I paint a lot so I get to make my own artwork for my walls so it’s fun to work around that,” she explains as she gestures at her two different sets of posters and painting collages in her bedroom.
Haon highlighted the magnet covered refrigerator. “I love our fridge, that’s a new addition to our decor. I think it’s so fun, and has a lot of good color and it just brings a lot of charm. It’s also just fun that every piece of furniture we have has a little story of how we got it,” Haon said excitedly as she displayed the refrigerator with a variety of different fridge magnets from all over the U.S. and Europe. Haon also shared that it was our third roommate who brought back this plethora of magnets from all her travels from study abroad in Greece.
From the pastel tones of Lone Mountain East to the charm of Inner Richmond and the vibrant, colorful decor in NoPa, each space reflects the creativity and resourcefulness of its occupants. Whether it’s using Facebook Marketplace treasures, homemade art or curated decor, these students create a cozy, personalized sanctuary in San Francisco. After all, it’s not just about where you live, but how you make it your home.
Editor-in-Chief: Jordan Premmer, Chief Copy Editor: Sophia McCrackin, Managing Editor: Jordan DelFiugo, Opinion Editor: Dakota Duran, Scene Editor: Elina Graham
