I lived in the smallest dorm room on campus last year. It was a dark time.

My roommate and I kept our beds bunked, shared a closet (seriously) and were constantly bumping into each other. The worst part, however, was that there was almost no wall space.

I was instantly in a pickle because I desperately needed a place to put all three of the gigantic photo collages I had slaved over, and my roommate’s Lady Gaga poster also demanded some serious wall space. We struggled.

Luckily, my room this year is like a palace of strangely yellow-gray walls that are all blank and ready to be adorned. To settle the question of what to do with this wall space, I turned to Pinterest — the perfect place for someone with an inflated notion of her own DIY ability and the entire month of September to kill.

I decided to start out small, so when I came across a pin regarding cityscapes made out of tape, I felt empowered. I could do this one. It wasn’t like those weird pins featuring crocheted cat costumes. This was a city made out of tape. I imagine my face resembled that of Christina Aguilera when she persuades a really talented contestant on “The Voice” to join #TeamXtina. This was my calling.

It turned out I was wrong.

Despite the fact that I have both visited various cities and used tape for a variety of reasons, my inherent inability to produce art served as a handicap for this project.

My first flaw was not fully understanding what I was working with. I was using Washi Tape. The Japanese masking tape was certainly colorful and decorative, but I also found it difficult to use because it ripped at inopportune moments.

After overcoming my shredded-tape issue, I put on my Frank Lloyd Wright hat and began to craft my city. I wasn’t going for a specific place, but noticing the slant of all the buildings, I realized I had inadvertently created multiple Leaning Towers of Pisa. My creation was Italian, naturally.

Once I was done, I realized it didn’t look that bad — it just looked out of place. Perhaps my choice of baby blue tape was a bit of a misstep, but I was proud of my work on some level. I had, after all, completed the task.

My roommate, on the other hand, was less impressed.

“Is that going to stay up the whole year?” she asked upon seeing my handiwork.

I hung my head. Once again, Pinterest made things look far easier than they were in practice. Maybe next time I’ll find something a little more tailored to my skill set.

— Hayley Glatter