How to Create a Zen Bedroom with These Organization Tips
If the kitchen is the heart of the home then the bedroom is the brain. Can you imagine waking up in the morning to a serene, clutter-free room feeling restored? Imagine your mind, body, and spirit getting a recharge each day. A bedroom that makes you feel calm and refreshed is a Zen bedroom. It's a place that’s not just a clean room; but a sanctuary, a soft place to land for your mind, body, and soul.
For Black women having a soft place to land is especially important because we’re so much to everyone else. Since a lot of our identity is centered around being helpful, which is beautiful. We often forget to apply that same service to our well-being. That’s why I help Black women with an unhealthy attachment to things break the generational pattern of living with excess. And this is the softness we deeply desire and truly deserve.
So, let’s dive into some practical bedroom organization tips to transform your bedroom into a Zen haven.
Declutter Your Space
Start with a Vision
You already know what your Zen bedroom should feel like. It might be hard to see it now, but it's within you. Use my Guided Sensory Visualization For Your Home to help. Ask yourself: How does it feel? What does it smell like? What materials do you feel? Keep this vision in mind as you declutter. It’ll be your motivation and guide.
Step-by-Step Guide to Decluttering
Address the 6 Clutter-Prone Spots in Master Bedrooms:
Closet Floor: This area gets overwhelmed easily with shoes, purses, papers, and more. Keep it clear, or add levels like a shelf or rack.
Top of the Dresser: Wallets, keys, jewelry, and receipts end up here. Organize with trays and baskets. Remove everything and clean the surface often.
Nightstand Drawer: Clean this drawer monthly, throwing out trash and wiping the surface.
Underneath Bed: This area often becomes a storage unit. Sweep, dust, mop, and clear it out often.
Seating or Chair: If it's piled with clothes, find a proper home for them. Jackets and sweaters should be hung, not draped.
Back of Bedroom Door: It's okay to use this space, just make sure it's for items used daily and not forgotten pieces.
Tackling these 6 areas will transform your bedroom. A Zen bedroom is a clutter-free bedroom, and these are the places where clutter lives.
Simplify Your Storage
Creating a Home for Everything
Photo By: Jason Rampe
The secret not so secret to creating a Zen bedroom is keeping all the beautiful things on display and hiding everything else, lol. Simplify your storage.
Clothes Storage:
Closet: If you have a closet and that’s where all your clothes will live, consider a capsule/minimalist wardrobe.
Dresser: Use a system that matches your lifestyle like file folding, the honeycomb drawer organizer, or cell drawer organizers
Structural Considerations:
Shelving/Custom Closet: Consider structural limitations or possibilities. If you can install shelving, get a custom closet, paint, or take down a wall- DO IT!
Decorative Storage Solutions for Master Bedrooms
You don’t have to compromise to have a Zen bedroom that’s beautiful and organized. My favorite ways to achieve this is to invest in decorative storage solutions like:
Storage Benches: Reflect on what you’ll store inside of it before making a purchase. These are wonderful for linens and towels, hair supplies, sentimental items, seasonal clothes, or accessories.
Storage Ottomans: Perfect for hiding knick-knacks and items from a junk drawer. Make sure you declutter the drawer first.
Shoe Cabinet: One of my new favorite storage solutions from the last 10 years. You can find so many types from almost every retailer. And you don’t have to limit using it just for shoes.
Nightstand with drawers: Get a nightstand with drawers to hide away those items that don’t belong on the surface.
A Zen bedroom lets the beautiful elements of a room shine so you can relax. Less is more.
Photo By: Jason Rampe
Furniture and Layout
Choosing the Right Furniture
You gotta be strategic about your main furniture pieces and how you place them. Because it's the what (furniture) and the how (layout/placement) that’ll be the star of the room. Cause Zen is about the function and the flow.
Multi-functional Pieces: You have to get creative and have fun. Say you get a storage bench that’ll also opt as your seating. Or you get a medium size dresser that doubles as a nightstand. It's about the space you have and your specific needs.
Floor baskets: These versatile pieces will give you that beauty and functionality we always want. Use them for dirty clothes, clothes not quite dirty, or linens.
Non-Negotiables: These are the items you want that’ll make you feel like the room is complete and feel like yours. For example a vanity, mirror, and light fixtures.
Optimal Bedroom Layout for a Zen Vibe
Feng Shui Principles: I loosely follow Feng Shui principles, like not having a mirror face our bed is something I’ve known intuitively. Sitting up in bed and immediately seeing myself feels like a bad idea. And that’s because it is. In Feng Shui, having a mirror face your bed can disrupt your spirit because mirrors amplify negative (and positive emotions).
Create Flow: I learned about flow from the book Apartment Therapy: The Eight-Step Home Cure by Maxwell Ryan who's the founder of Apartment Therapy. Good flow positions your furniture for a clear path in the room to support easy movement. Imagine if water were to come into the room, you’d want it to easily flow in, out, and around it.
Keep surfaces clear: I teach this concept in-depth in my virtual organizing program Abode. If the items on your surfaces (dresser, nightstand, vanity, desk, standing shelf) don’t have a proper or permanent home, it's bound to be cluttered. But there are ways to beautify your dresser even if you lack storage. Opt to keep only essentials accessible or use drawers to hide and contain items altogether.
I teach flow through the lens of clutter in my virtual organizing program Abode where you also learn how to declutter, tackle problem areas, and pinpoint the specific items that clutter your surfaces and floors. Removing and addressing clutter is a straight path to a Zen bedroom.
Creating a Calming Atmosphere
Incorporating Living Elements
Indoor Plants: Since your home is like a living entity that needs tender loving care, it responds well to other living elements. Like plants. Plants will liven up your bedroom, energetically and spiritually. They also serve health benefits like purifying the air.
Flowers: Between the different spiritual meanings to the colors, flowers in your bedroom can add a touch of romance or softness that no other element can.
Materials: Your theme and preference will determine what materials you use but it’s the idea of having fabrics that add a layer of light, mellow, and fluid energy to the space. A couple of materials my bedroom include cotton sheets and boucle seating.
Scents for your Bedroom
Air Purifier: Air purifies remove the dust and impurities from the air that we can’t see with our eyes but our bodies capture. If you’re like me and you grew up poor then you had no concept of air quality. But I didn’t know sleep until I experienced the power of cleaner air. We use the Dyson brand for this.
Scent Profile: A scent profile is a way to classify the scents of a perfume but I’m using it another way. Remember how I said your home is a living entity? Well, that means it also has a personality. You can choose a lavender room spray scent to go with your Zen or another method to make your Zen bedroom feel relaxing.
Lighting Tips for a Zen Bedroom
Create layers of light: The best bedrooms have different types of lighting for different purposes. Of course, you want to go for soft and warm lighting. But you also want to have lamps for midday, candles for evenings, and overhead (or the big light) for daytime.
Blackout Curtains: I’ve gotten my best sleep in complete darkness and silence. Plus, blocking out light with blackout curtains supports our natural body clock or circadian cycle.
Sounds and Music
Morning and Evening Sounds: What do you like to wake up to, natural or artificial sounds? I love to hear the birds chirping and since we have large trees outside our window we hear plenty of them. For you, it may be ocean waves or silence.
Photo By: Jason Rampe
Maintenance and Habits
There are daily and weekly routines I’ve been following for years to maintain order in my bedroom. And when things get crazy in the week, I can still easily reset the space. Cleaning can be an easy chore you do yourself OR one you can delegate with the right systems in place.
Daily Habits: Contain the clothes you’ve worn that aren’t quite dirty. Get in the habit of keeping these clothes in one place. Making your bed every morning is key too and a bare minimum task for a zen bedroom.
Putting things back: Start with one item to put back, like your ironing board. Commit to putting it away after every use, then focus on doing that for a few weeks. Eventually, move on to another item and put that back until it is second nature.
Weekly Rituals: Spend every week decluttering your wardrobe (until you no longer have to), do laundry, folding, and hanging clothes. Taking the top of the week to focus on your biggest headache creates mental space to work on the other areas in your bedroom that need order.
Zen Bedroom Essentials Checklist
Photo By: Jason Rampe
Here’s a summary of everything we covered plus a checklist to guide you through the process:
Photo By: Jason Rampe
Declutter these 6 Clutter-Prone Spots in Master Bedrooms:
Closet floor
Top of the dresser
Nightstand drawer
Underneath Bed
Corner with chair
Back of bedroom door
Focus on simple and decorative storage solutions like:
Storage Benches
Storage Ottomans
Shoe Cabinets
Nightstand with drawers
Consider multi-functional Furniture:
Storage bench also serves as the seating
Medium-dresser doubling as a nightstand
Floor basket that’s decor and holds laundry.
Layout and Flow:
Don’t place a mirror facing your bed
Position furniture for a clear path for easy movement
Keep surfaces like your dresser, nightstand, vanity, desk, and standing shelf clear
Create a home for items on the floors
Incorporating living elements:
Get Indoor plants like golden pothos, the snake, or ZZ plants.
Buy flowers considering their spiritual meaning and colors
Incorporate fabrics that add a layer of light, mellow, and fluid energy
Make it smell good:
Purify the air with an air purifier for a clean and “natural scent”
Choose a “Scent Profile” for your bedroom that reflects your essence
Pick your preferred method for a smell-good bedroom
Establish daily and weekly routines:
Do things like make your bed every morning and put things away before leaving
Every week declutter your wardrobe (until you no longer have to)
Put clothes away to prepare for the following week
All the bedrooms I’ve lived in required a different level of maintenance and they’ve all required these simple habits that developed over time. Between putting things back before I left for the day and making my bed these have kept my bedroom looking and feeling fresh. And with this final checklist, you’ll be well on your way to creating a Zen bedroom that provides the rest and reprieve you deserve especially with the chaos of the world.
Resource List
Where to bring Donations: Use my master list of different places to bring donations to declutter your wardrobe, shoes, and accessories.
Take Inventory: If you still feel overwhelmed with just starting, take inventory of your bedroom with my Life Inventory worksheet
Listen to my Guided Sensory Visualization For Your Home to help visualize your dream bedroom using the 6 senses. This meditation will help you to get a clear picture of how you want to set up your ideal room.
How much Clutter do you have: If you want to know how to approach organizing your bedroom based on how much clutter you have, learn more about my 5 Homebody Archetypes.
Spring Clean today: Give your bedroom a deep clean and reset. Get checklists to declutter your shoes and house t-shirts.
Have a resistant partner: Sharing a room with another adult who happens to be your partner can have its challenges, get my Organize Together Guide for strategies and a fresh perspective on cohabiting while organizing.
