16 Dorm Room Organization Ideas That Will Transform Your Space
Create your perfect room with the best dorm room organization ideas! Your room is about to look absolutely spotless and flawless!
Note: There are affiliate links included in this article. Check out my disclosure policy for any questions.
I’m not going to lie, moving into a dorm room is stressful. Going through it all this year, I am constantly having to figure out everything from how I am shipping my stuff to college to what colors I want my dorm room.
To put it lightly, it’s a lot. And on top of it all, once you finally do have everything, you need to figure out what to do with it all too.
To ease some of the burden, I am sharing all the best dorm room organization ideas that will help you fit all your sh*t in your dorm room and maximize the small space.
This post is all about dorm room organization ideas!
Use multipurpose furniture
With such a small space, the trick to fitting as much as possible is to use multipurpose, functional furniture. Although you also want to make sure your room looks amazing, remember to consider the functionality of certain pieces you are using in your room.
One of the best multipurpose pieces is an ottoman for your shoes. For something as bulky and space-consuming as shoes, putting them all in an ottoman is perfect. All of your shoes will be contained, and you’ll have a cute extra piece of seating in your room.
Create zones for all your stuff
Your dorm room is going to become a mini home for you. Naturally, that’s going to mean you have a very wide variety of stuff in there. From clothes to toiletries to medicine, it’s all gonna be in the same place.
That being said, try your best to create zones for these different categories. You can do this with the help of bins to keep each section separated.
I love using multipurpose, clear bins at the top of the closet and under the bed for all these items. In these bins, categories such as medicines, home stuff, toiletries, accessories, school supplies, and more can all be contained.
Talk to your roommate
When it comes to home items like a dust-buster, cleaning supplies, and more, talk to your roommate about who is bringing what. For many of these items, you aren’t going to need to have two.
If you coordinate, you’ll be able to save a ton of space and money!
Use every inch under the bed
The majority of your storage space in your room is going to be under the bed. This is where you will house the bulk of your clothing, as well as a bunch of other dorm essentials.
That being said, it is super important to have the right storage options under there to hold all of this stuff. When it comes to clothes, I will never stop recommending the extra deep drawers from Bed Bath. These store so many clothes and will last you multiple years in the dorms.
In addition to these, regular multipurpose bins are perfect for whatever else you want to store under the bed. Whether you use these or something else, I would highly recommend keeping everything under the bed in some sort of bin or basket with a lid. That way, nothing gets too dusty and it makes pulling things out so much easier.
Bring Ikea bags instead of luggage
For students traveling on a plane to college, don’t waste space under the bed or on top of the closet with bulky luggage. Instead, bring foldable Ikea storage bags or duffels.
If it folds up super small, it’s perfect. This way, you can have something in your room to use to travel home for breaks, but it won’t take up too much space in your room.
Get a functional night table
When shopping for a night table, function should be at the top of your list. This is prime real estate to store all of your everyday toiletries, jewelry, makeup, everyday wires/electronics, hats, sunglasses, and more.
To hold all this stuff, you are going to want a night table with a lot of storage.
Limit your throw pillows
As tempting as it may seem to go crazy with the throw pillows, I am going to warn you to try to use some self control in your shopping.
After that first move-in-day picture, your throw pillows are going to get annoying. With such a small room, you aren’t going to have much extra space to store those pillows while you are sleeping or on your bed during the day.
As a rule of thumb, try to get only one to three throw pillows and one throw blanket max. This is the perfect amount to have a cute bedspread, without it getting to be too much to handle in the small space.
Use your desk surface for storage
Another place in the room you can multitask for more storage is the top of your desk. Instead of just putting some organizers on there with desk supplies, invest in a desk hutch to really maximize that space.
The hutch will give you so much more surface area to hold things like a printer, desk supplies, notebooks, and some cute decor items. Plus, it looks super cute!
Label label label
With practically your entire life in such a tiny space, you are bound to have a lot of stuff in there. Keep everything as organized as possible by taking the time to label it all.
Labels on under the bed bins, top-of-the-closet bins, night table drawers, desk drawers, and more will help you out so much in actually keeping your space organized.
Labels are the key to creating maintainable systems in your dorm room.
Command Strips/Hooks are your best friend
When you’ve got no space left in your room, command hooks are going to come in handy to utilize some extra space on the walls. You can use these to hang your towels, shower candy, belts, necklaces, masks, purses and more.
Where ever you have extra wall space, use the hooks to maximize the space and create more storage opportunities. Command strips are also perfect for any hanging you are going to be doing in your room.
Utilize the doors
Like the wall space, behind the door is another super important space to maximize. Whether it’s the main door to the room, a closet door, or a bathroom door, hang an over-the-door organizer on the back to give yourself another place for your stuff.
This is the perfect spot for smaller stuff that might not naturally have a place somewhere else in the room. For example, hats, sunglasses, reuseable water bottles, umbrellas, scarves/gloves, purses and more are perfect to put in these organizers.
Plan for the seasons
With such a small space, you just aren’t going to be able to fit clothes for every season. Try rotating your clothes from summer/spring clothes to fall/winter clothes as the seasons change.
That way, you’ll only have half the amount of clothes in your room at one time, which will free up a ton of space.
Work with your space
One of the best dorm room organization ideas when it comes clothes is to work with the space that you have in your room. If you have more room for piles, fold as much as you can. If you have more hanging space, hang as much as you can.
With the second situation, you can also bring a hanging shelf that will transform your hanging space into room for folded clothes.
Know your space before you go
The best way to plan out what organizational items you need in your room is to know the space before shopping. Once you get your housing assignment and know where you will be living, look up the floor plan and pictures on your college’s website.
Depending on the school, you may be able to see specific pictures and virtual tours of the space.
You can also go on YouTube and try to find dorm tours from other students to better see the space and how some people have used it.
Once you have all of this information, then you should buy whatever items you think you need to organize.
Bring extra storage pieces if your have the space
Depending on your room and the amount of stuff you have, you may also want to bring an additional storage piece.
Something like a set of drawers or cubbies makes the perfect stylish storage addition to your room.
Bring less stuff!
Wanna know the best way to make dorm room organization easier? Have less stuff to organize.
As hard as it may seem, cut down as much as you can when packing and only bring the absolute essentials. Trust be when I say you are going to thank yourself later when you don’t have to deal with so much stuff in your small room.
This post was all about dorm room organization ideas!
Other posts you may like:
- Dorm Room Essentials – ULTIMATE List For Freshman
- 9 Dorm Room Inspiration Ideas You Need To Recreate
- 11 College Dorm Decorating Ideas You Will Obsess Over
