10 Easy Ways To Keep Your Dorm Room Organized And Space Efficient
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Your college dorm is seemingly the last thing on your mind amidst all your classes, assignments and exams. With your mind focused on academics and your social life, your college dorm might see some messier days. It happens to the best of us. However, there are some easy ways you can keep the clutter to a minimum and save yourself some time and energy in the long run. Here are some easy ways to keep your dorm organized, efficient and clean.
Invest In Shelving
If you have enough space in your college dorm room, bringing additional shelving is one of the most helpful ways to keep your dorm room organized. Whether you choose a shelving unit that’s short or reaches the ceiling, they provide so much storage space for snacks, extra toiletries, laundry detergent and more. If you’re worried about transporting your shelving unit each semester, there are plenty of inexpensive collapsible options available.
Use Bed Risers
This is an easy option to help give you tons of extra storage space. Depending on the risers you get, you can raise your bed anywhere from 3 inches to a foot, which adds a ton of extra space below your bed. Here, you can store bins, add extra shelving, shoes, or anything else you have that can fit in that area. It also helps you hide all of the extra items you don’t want out in the open and might take away from the vibe of your room.
Use Every Part Of Your Furniture
People often make great use of the furniture provided by their college, such as drawers and dressers. However, an often overlooked spot to store your extra items is above your dressers, shelves or even your mini fridge. These spaces are excellent places to store things you want to keep out of eyesight. Mini fridges make an excellent shelf to store snacks, a microwave or coffee maker.
Try Out Drawer Organizers
When trying to organize your desk or dresser drawers, it might be difficult to keep everything in one place and prevent items from shifting around. A great way to keep everything in your drawer in its proper place is through drawer organizers. These can help you categorize anything you put in your drawers and make it easier to find everything.
Buy Thin Clothes Hangers
Depending on what school you go to, the dresser space your college dorm room offers could be spacious or extremely tight. Either way, one of the easiest ways to reserve space for new clothes is to bring very thin clothes hangers with you. These are easy to find and purchase on sites such as Amazon, Target or Walmart. Thin clothing hangers don’t take up unnecessary space and will help make even the smallest difference in the amount of extra space you have. If you have a ton of clothes to store at college or are an online shopaholic, these types of hangers will be perfect for saving space in your dorm room closet.
Try Shelving Cubbies
If you end up investing in shelving and have a ton of objects you want to store on it, cubbies are a great option to keep looking organized. Instead of worrying about stacking items and preventing things from falling over, cubbies keep everything in one place and take away the look of clutter. You can also categorize the items you put in your cubbies so you know where everything is. Additionally, you can buy different colored and patterned cubbies to help match the decor in your college dorm room.
Command Strips And Hangers
While command strips can be extremely helpful when hanging up your dorm room decor, they can also be extremely helpful with hanging items such as towels, keys and jackets. You can place command strips on walls, but sometimes the paint is not very adhesive to the strip, so placing the strips on wooden surfaces such as your dresser might be a better option. You can also purchase hanger racks that can be placed on the front or back or doors, or even off the side of your dresser.
Bedside Caddies
This ingenious item is an absolute lifesaver, especially if your bed is on bed risers or you don’t have a bedside table. Bedside caddies can come in many forms, whether they are a small, horizontal surface, or a small pouch or pocket that you clip onto your bed. This is an incredibly space efficient way to store chargers, headphones, water bottles, or anything else you might need right beside your bed. These caddies are excellent because they provide storage without taking up excess floor space while still making essential items easily accessible to you in bed.
Use Your Windowsill
Oftentimes, college dorm room windows have pretty spacious window sills, which are an excellent option to store excess items and decorations. People often store more aesthetically pleasing things such as textbooks, lamps or power strips, which could easily take up half of your desk space. Window sills are also great for holding your knick knacks and other small decorative items, which will free up more space on your desk. If you’re fortunate enough to have a spacious windowsill, don’t let that empty space go to waste.
Buy Organizers For Your Products
One of the easiest ways to prevent excess clutter is with organizers for your makeup and skincare. A lot of people bring their entire makeup collection with them to college, so bringing a spacious organizer is an excellent way to manage your collection and also make it look nice on your desk. Organizers are also a great way to store and even display your skin care so it’s not just sitting in a bag in your desk drawer.
Your college dorm room is a space you will be spending a lot of time in, whether you’re grinding out a paper or even having a movie night with your friends. In order to keep your room clean and organized, there are a lot of great and inexpensive products you can purchase to help make things a little easier for you.
Lara Hill is a senior Public Relations major at Emerson College from Groton, Massachusetts. She has contributed to several college publications, holding multiple editing positions and focusing mainly on sports journalism. When she is not in class or writing, she loves to sail, watch sports with her friends and family, sing with her sisters, and play with her dog, Cassie.