I remember freshman move-in day. After the sweaty process of transporting boxes of stuff through Florida rain and humidity, I was excited to make my new space into my new home. I had the bedspread, the desk lamp and storage bins, all from department stores.
However, aside from a few pictures and cat figurines from my extensive cat-enthusiast collection, my room needed more. During the past year, I discovered shops and events in and around Gainesville with inventories that helped make my room into, well, my room.
1. Festivals, art walks and markets, oh my!
Annually, the City of Gainesville Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs hosts the Downtown Festival & Art Show. Two hundred and fifty artists from Gainesville and abroad present and sell their art. The festival draws more than 100,000 people and is ranked the third best fine arts show in Florida, said Linda Piper, the event’s coordinator.
A more frequent celebration of the arts happens on the last Friday of every month, when local artists and musicians take over shops, restaurants and venues downtown to form Art Walk Gainesville. The possibilities for unique wall décor, cool crafts and furniture are endless.
On an even more frequent basis, the Union Street Farmers Market occurs Wednesdays from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Bo Diddley Community Plaza downtown. The majority of the market consists of food from local farms, but there are also a few vendors selling imported fabrics, soaps, handmade jewelry, soy and beeswax candles and other crafts.
All three events feature local musicians and delicious noms, so participants can get a robust taste of Gainesville’s culture.
2. Exit Through the Gift Shop
Every time I go to the Harn Museum, I wish I could take art from the exhibits and put it in my room, but I wouldn’t be able to appreciate it from jail.
What’s the next best thing? The gift shop. The store is full of reasonably priced prints, wall ornaments and vintage postcards blown up to poster size, said Erica Williams, a senior sociology major at UF who works at the shop. There are also cups, figurines and fake flowers that make great desk toppers, Williams said.
The museum is on Hull Road, across from Southwest Recreation Center.
3. Antique like a pro
Gainesville has an exceptional inventory of vintage merchandise. The Eclectic Co. Vintage & Resale Shop on North Main Street, there is a vast selection of vintage furniture and décor.
Inventory consists of vintage chairs, sofas, tables, place settings, lamps and wall art.
There’s also the Waldo Farmers and Flea Market/Antique Village on Northeast U.S. Highway 301.
Like most antique stores, this mall is split into sections based on the seller, if one booth doesn’t have the ideal buy, the next one may.
The mall is open every day and there is also a flea market Saturdays and Sundays. It’s definitely worth the 20- to 30-minute drive, but make sure to follow the speed limit signs. Waldo is a notorious speed trap.
4. Take advantage of free stuff around campus
College students love free stuff, and UF has a lot of it.
Sports fans can get UF athletic posters at the University Athletic Association office at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Basketball games, have posters too. The Map & Imagery Library, located on Marston Science Library’s ground floor, is also an outlet for free wall décor. It has a box of duplicated and out-of-date maps that students can take.
An elevation map of Chile looks surprisingly cool and intellectual hanging on a dorm room or apartment wall. Make it fancy with a frame from the Talking Walls frame shop in the Reitz Union.
5. DIY
Crafting is in, and there are places to get DIY supplies around Gainesville.
The Arts & Crafts Center in the basement of the Reitz has supplies and offers leisure courses in ceramics, drawing, screen printing and jewelry, according to the website.
At Do Art on University Avenue, participants pick out an undecorated piece of pottery and paint it. The store will glaze and fire the piece.
Downtown, there’s the Repurpose Project, an effort that focuses on redirecting waste items into art. The center is filled with recycled yarn, beads, ceramic tiles, frames, paint and so much more.
“There are lots of decorating opportunities from furniture to lampshades,” Mike Myers, one of the founders of the project, wrote in an email.
The Goodwill stores on Southwest 34th Street and Northwest 13th Street also have cheap picture frames, glass trinkets and furniture that can be recycled into art and practical pieces.
Crafting and recycling? Even better.
After discovering all of these outlets in the last year, my room became the grandma-chic pad that I’d always wanted. Regardless of what your decorating dreams are, all of the culture and creativity Gainesville has to offer makes it easy to transform what could be anybody’s room into your room.
