Organize Your Small, Heavily Cluttered Room

If you’re living in a box of a room with too much stuff and not enough space, you may benefit from better storage and tips on how to make your room feel larger. As daunting as tackling a small, cluttered room may seem, a little effort can go a long way. Start with some basics like making your bed and hanging up clothes. Then, move on to organizing and do things to make your room look and feel larger, like hanging your T.V. on the wall. With a little bit of time and some dedication to your cause, you'll be on your way to a modern, space efficient room!

Steps

Tidying Your Room

  1. Make your bed. Move anything that doesn't belong on your bed off it. Making your bed can make a small room look cleaner with very little effort. Tuck bed sheets in neatly and arrange your pillows nicely.
  2. Get rid of things you haven't used in the last six months. It'll be hard at first, but once you stop adding sentimental value to unnecessary items you'll find that you have a lot more space than you think. Donate anything you haven’t used in the last six months, or find storage outside your room, and move on.[1]
  3. Put anything you don’t use everyday away. A small room can accumulate many small items on dressers and end tables. Find a spot for things like notebooks, jewelry, hair brushes, etc., if you don’t use them every day and put them away.[2]
  4. Wash dirty clothes. Wash any dirty clothes lying around your room and put them away. Buy and use a dirty clothes hamper, if you don't already have one.
  5. Hang and put away clean clothes. Clothes can take up a lot of unnecessary space, when they are not folded or hung up properly. Organize your closet if you need to. Hang up any outfits you tried on, but didn't put away.
  6. Pack away all out-of-season clothing. Put winter or summer clothes inside a luggage container, a bag or other place and store somewhere else until you need it. Swap the clothes out every change of season. This will create a lot more space and it cuts down searching time too.
    • Only store clean clothing and add cedar balls, lavender bags, etc., to deter insects from eating the fabric.

Creating Storage Space

  1. Use stackable storage containers. Purchase plastic containers and put away things you have around your room, but don’t use everyday. Fill up as many as you need and stack them up in your closet.
  2. Hang shelves. Wall shelves can be used in place of nightstands or tables. Hang long ones to use as a bookshelf.[3]
  3. Use underbed storage. Remember to keep the space underneath your bed organized with storage units. If you have space under your bed, you can purchase fabric drawers and place them under your bed to use it for clothes, extra bedding, mementos, collections and so on.
  4. Purchase over-the-door hanging organizers. Decide on what you want to store on your door. Shoe racks are the most common organizer used on doors, but you can store many things with an over-the-door organizer. If you want to hold random items, like pens, toiletries or accessories, opt for small baskets. Purchase a collapsible clothes line, if you think you’ll hang clothes.[4]
  5. Use a wardrobe app. There are many apps you can use to take pictures of your clothes and shoes to help organize them. Make a note indicating where they are stored in your room. Locate items quickly and identify some neat outfit combinations with just the glance of an eye. Be sure to always put things back in their allocated places![5]

Making Your Room Look Larger

  1. Move furniture around. Shift the furniture around to find the best use of space in your room. You might find that a different arrangement helps you move around your small room more freely.
    • Make a scale of your room by drawing on a piece of paper first if you don’t have enough room to move furniture around. Some computer programs help with this.[6]
  2. Bring more light into the room. Remove heavy drapes if they are in the room, and keep the blinds up and curtains parted during the daytime. Add long, slender lamps to add height and make use of the ceiling by hanging lights.[7]
  3. Paint the walls light colors. Dark colors can make rooms appear smaller. Paint with light or soft neutral colors, because they help give a sense of spaciousness. Pick a satin or eggshell finish to reflect the maximum amount of light.[8]
  4. Keep drawers and doors closed. Open doors and drawers make the place feel cluttered and cramped. Always close the doors to your wardrobe and shut the drawers to keep things feeling tidy and more spacious.
  5. Hang the TV on the wall. If you have a TV in the room, get a hanging device so that it is up and out of the way. You will have more room to move around, and it will also free up dresser or table space. Place your TV on a shelf, if you don’t have a flat screen that can be mounted on the wall, .

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Sources and Citations

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