How to Organize Your Small, Heavily Cluttered Room

Creating Storage Space

Use stackable storage containers. Purchase plastic containers and put away things you have around your room, but don’t use every day. Fill up as many as you need and stack them up in your closet.

Hang shelves. Wall shelves can be used in place of nightstands or tables. Hang long ones to use as a bookshelf. If you have a closet full of storage containers, go through them to make sure you still need everything.

Use under-bed 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.

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 clothesline if you think you’ll hang clothes.

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!

Making Your Room Look Larger

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. Consider pushing your bed into the corner to create more floor space. Chip and Joanna Gaines Chip and Joanna Gaines, Remodel & Interior Design Experts Don't be afraid to switch up your home's look. "Rearrange your furniture. Twice. Or three times. Don’t worry about it being perfect the first time. In fact, never stop rearranging. It helps to keep your home alive and evolving. I believe that intentionality with a dose of creativity goes much further than money and flawless taste when it comes to making a house a home."

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.

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.

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.

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.

Tidying Your Room

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. If you ever have too many blankets or pillows, take off the ones that you don’t need or use often.

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.

Put anything you don’t use every day away. A small room can accumulate many small items on dressers and end tables. Find a spot for things like notebooks, jewelry, hairbrushes, etc., if you don’t use them every day and put them away.

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. If you aren’t sure if some clothes are clean or dirty, wash it just to be safe.

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. Make a donation pile for clothes you don’t wear or don’t fit anymore. You can either pass them down in your family or take them to a donation center.

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. Get plastic bins that fit underneath your bed so you can store clothes in the off-season.