Steps

Part 1

1. Ask permission first. Before you go shifting around your bed or other furniture, make sure you have the go-ahead from parents, partners, roommates, or landlords, to make sure it's ok to move stuff around. This can also be a good opportunity to ask for a helping hand when moving time comes.
   • Don't attempt to move especially large furniture by yourself. If you're going to try to move a big dresser or a bed, you need at least one other person to help you, and preferably more.
2. Get furniture sliders for big items. One easy way to move bulky or cumbersome items easily if they aren't on casters is to put them on sliders or "furniture feet, " which allow you to slide the furniture along the ground more easily, without worrying about tipping. These are available at most housewares and home repair stores.
   • You can also make your own sliders from blankets, frisbees, sheets, towels, or old carpet samples.
   • Use hard plastic sliders for carpeted floors, and padded sliders for hard wood. Depending on whether you have hard wood floors or carpeting in your room, sliders can be more or less effective. They're not necessary in every case.
3. Get rid of stuff to make extra space. Before you start moving anything around, take some time to declutter your space. Get rid of trash and anything that doesn't belong in your room, including drinking glasses and other kitchen stuff, other people's belongings, and towels and other things.
   • This might take a while, but it's an essential step and you should let it. If you want to spend a few days going through your desk and your bookshelf, tossing out unwanted old papers and materials, this is the perfect opportunity to do so. Be judicious and cut down on your stuff.
   • Tidy up your clothes and separate your clean clothes and dirty clothes. You can evaluate whether or not you need and have space for additional organizational space later.
   • Try to keep only the minimum of things you'll actually need to use regularly, to keep out in your room. Everything else, either get rid of if you have no sentimental attachment to it, or place the objects into storage and keep it out of sight.
4. Start with a thorough cleaning. A newly rearranged room should be clean, so it's pretty typical to start by thoroughly cleaning your space, then taking some time to clean under and around the furniture that you moved later. Rearranging, organizing, and cleaning usually all blends together into one big project.
   • Clean mirrors, vacuum, wash the floor, do a thorough dusting, and clean all the surfaces and interiors of the furniture that you're planning on moving. Start by cleaning high, sweeping out the corners of the room. Do the floor last.
   • Alternatively, some people may prefer to start a bigger mess and clean up later. Depending on how you like to work, just jump right into reorganizing and get your room messy, then worry about doing the deep clean after you've got everything in place.
5. Visualize your new space. Now that you've got your space uncluttered and clean, start planning where and how you'd like your room organized. Measure your furniture to make sure it will fit in the spaces that you want to move it, before you've done so. Read the next section for tips on reorganizing your furniture.
   • For some people, it may be helpful to draw a visual layout of how you want your room to look. That way, if you don't like it you can erase it and start over. Measure everything to make sure it fits. You don't want to waste all your energy only to find that things don't fit.
   • You might consider measuring all the walls and the areas in your room, as well as the furniture, and draw your plan to scale. Or, you can just get moving if you're more of a hands-on thinker.