3 Simple Steps to Creating a Minimalist Bedroom & Maintaining it!
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The bedroom should be a haven for peaceful sleep, but most of us find that in reality, our rooms are cluttered with piles of laundry, outgrown clothes, electronics, storage bins, stuffed animals and basically they’ve become glorified catch-all spaces. Yikes–no wonder we can’t get restful sleep! Making the switch to a minimalist bedroom doesn’t have to be boring, but it can make a significant difference in your stress levels. Here are 3 Simple Steps to Creating a Minimalist Bedroom & Maintaining it!
1. Establish What Will & Won’t Be in the Bedroom
Be brutal and write down a list of specifics. Think about what the purpose of your room is. In our home, the bedroom is not a playroom, game room or storage room (aside from one small area in the closet). Those activities happen in other parts of the home. Not the bedroom!
In our family, the bedroom houses:
- beds
- clothes
- bedtime books & stuffed animals for our daughter
- diffuser & bedtime essential oils
- select linens and items in closets
What we don’t keep in the bedroom:
- TV and electronics
- excess toys
- piles of clothes that need attention
- everything else not listed above! =)
2. Create a Designated Space or Boundary for the Items in the Room
This is so important for keeping organized spaces and eliminating chaos. All items allowed in the room must fit in their space. If you do not designate a space, it is guaranteed that items will quickly overrun the room! An example of a physical boundary is the one fabric bin that holds bedtime stuffed animals, books and extra blankets for our daughter.
Once that bin starts overflowing, excess is removed and taken back to the playroom or bookshelf. It’s not allowed to overflow and stay in the bedroom!
The same goes for the 6 cube wooden organizer that holds our socks, underwear, and pajamas, as well as the clothes in the closet. If the bins are bulging, it’s time to weed out excess. If it doesn’t fit nicely and it isn’t used, it doesn’t stay!
3. Make a Habit of Removing Items that Don’t Belong
Spaces stay neat and clear with regular maintenance. This is probably the biggest key to keeping the floors and surfaces of the room free of piles and clutter.
When an item comes into the room (toys, books, dirty clothes, clean laundry, stuff looking for a home, etc.), as I walk through the room several times a day, I snatch up those items and put them where they belong immediately so that the piles never get out of hand.
Let your family members know the rules–they can bring things in and use them, but they have to go out again when they’re done! The bedroom shouldn’t be the place for stuff to be dumped and left behind.
Your piles of clothes to giveaway should be in a bag by the door or in your car. Broken toys should be trashed or recycled. Dirty clothes should be in the hamper and clean clothes should be put away. (Minimizing your wardrobe will pretty much take care of both of those common problems as well).
In the back of our closet, we do store a few items like space heaters and the next couple sizes of clothes for our daughter, but it’s not allowed as storage for things we don’t need or use anymore.
If you’re struggling with items that don’t belong in the bedroom, check out 5 Stumbling Blocks to an Organized Bedroom (and how to fix them!)
We use all the clothes, blankets and sheets kept in our closet.
Our other closet does have some storage space so we keep the laundry hamper, space heaters, and clothes our daughter doesn’t fit into yet.
Bonus Tip: A Minimalist Bedroom Doesn’t Have to Be Boring
When looking at our family bedroom, you’ll see mostly plain walls and not a lot of decor. That’s just our personal preference right now in our stage of life.
It doesn’t have to be yours.
There are fabulous ideas on Pinterest for simple, elegant ways to make a room cozy, while still keeping minimalist concepts intact. Go for it–paint your walls, and hang some plants and pictures. Those extra touches are totally fine, as long as you don’t fall into excess.
See our full bedroom space tour here:
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