Dorm living pricier

WASHINGTON – Patrick Baglino, a designer here, works with multimillion-dollar budgets. He’s decorated mansions in Washington, New York lofts in SoHo, and waterfront condos in Florida. He also does dorm rooms.

A recent makeover for two friends at Georgetown University included Ralph Lauren bed linens, window treatments from Anthropologie and a $1,200 Angela Adams carpet. Total price: about $5,000, not including Baglino’s fees.

College students who can’t quite manage a personal designer can still customize their dorm decor by registering for exactly what they want at Bed, Bath & Beyond, Linens-N-Things or Wal-Mart. College registries, which have evolved from wedding registries, offer convenience for students and parents, especially those traveling long distances. Some retailers will take your wish list and have everything ready at the store nearest your campus. Bed, Bath & Beyond even delivers to college dorms near its stores.

Moving way past carpet remnants, milk crates and hand-me-down refrigerators, style-conscious students these days aspire to roman shades, featherbeds and micro-fridges (a combination of refrigerator, freezer and microwave) to adorn their cinderblock cubicles.

Danielle Feuerberg of Centerville, Va., 18, is heading to Tulane University in New Orleans next month. She has not yet met her freshman roommate, Ashlee Riden of Kansas City, also 18, but the two already have shopped together, via e-mail.

They have picked a color scheme for their room (pink and orange) and purchased coordinating bedspreads. “We send hyper-links and pictures of things we’ve found on the Internet, and e-mail everyday with messages like, `Do you like this?’ and `What do you think of this?’”

With gift cards and money saved, Feuerberg has spent $200. By the time she’s finished, she expects the cost to be about $500.

That’s well below the approximately $1,200 the average freshmen spends on back-to-school items, according to a 2004 National Retail Federation survey, which estimates that college students and their parents will spend about $25.7 billion. The breakdown: $7.5 billion on electronics, $8.8 billion on textbooks, $3.2 billion on clothing and accessories, $2.6 billion on dorm or apartment furnishings, $2.1 billion on school supplies, and $1.5 billion on shoes.

Baglino says the parents of the Georgetown students he helped seemed more distraught than the children who were about to leave.