How to conquer the clutter in your teen room one zone at a time

Is your teen room a disaster with no room for your friends when they come over?

If so, I’ve got some great ideas for conquering all your clutter and making better use of the teen room space your have.

Since teen rooms function as both a place to relax and recharge your batteries as well as a place to get dressed and ready for each day, it’s important that the space is well organized. However, it’s hard to get organized and stay organized without having the proper tools.

Let’s start with the most obvious source of clutter. If I’m guessing correctly, it would be your clothing. If most of what you wear doesn’t have a home in your closet or is stored haphazardly then it’s time to reorganize your closet space.

Also your teen room furniture and accessories play a role in how easy it is for you to dress or undress without leaving a trail of items. You see when used creatively, your teen room furniture can offer both short and long term storage thereby freeing up some more space in your closet.

To conquer your teen room clutter once and for all you need to look at your individual zones. For instance, my daughter’s teen room has four zones – closet, bed and nightstand, dresser, and suspended storage (shelves and peg hooks).

Let’s start with the closet and how best to utilize it. The goal is to make everything you store in it visible and accessible. If you can get away with only having a single clothes rod that’s great but if you find your clothes are too jammed you’ll want to either add a second rod or consider folding some of your clothes and putting them on a closet shelf.

A big part of successfully de-cluttering your teen bedroom is to limit anything you don’t really want or need in your bedroom.

The next zone you should focus is your bed and nightstand. If you have a lamp on your nightstand you might want to talk to your parent’s about installing a reading lamp on the wall above your bed instead to save valuable space on your nightstand.

Another good idea for your bed and nightstand zone is to have a bench at the end of your bed so you can lay out your clothes for the next day and use the area beneath to store a decorative collection of storage containers like two or three large square or rectangular bins or baskets.

For off season clothes consider utilizing the space under your bed. You either can purchase some bed risers that go under each of your bed legs or some expensive plastic totes with lids and wheels that are designed to fit under most beds.

To keep clutter at bay in zone 3 ‘your dresser’, remove everything from its surface and re-evaluate what really needs to be there.

For instance if the surface of your dresser is cluttered with jewelry consider a well-organized jewelry box with separate compartments for earrings, rings, necklaces etc. Or use a bulletin board to hang your necklaces and an ice cube tray in one of your top dresser drawers and store your earrings and rings in the individual sections.

Now if your dresser is cluttered with perfumes, hand and face creams, make-up etc. give some thought to what products you use most often and whether you can better store them in open bins or baskets or in containers with lids. Or better yet, can you make room for some of these items in a dresser drawer? The key is to having the products near by where they are being used. If you have excess products you don’t use on a daily basis find an out of the way place to store them until you need them, that way, you won’t be needlessly cluttering up the space.

Suspended storage includes shelves and any hooks you many have in your teen room. This final zone is also classified as open storage and can incorporate things like under the shelf bins, individual peg hooks or a series of hooks attached to a backing and affixed to your wall. Hooks are a great way to display and store purses, ball caps, decorative hats, belts, scarves etc.

In my next post, I’ll discuss ways in how to keep your teen room zones neat and tidy.