Closet Tricks

A couple, fun ideas to help you make some quick sense of your closet:
  1. Hang all your clothes with the hanger facing you (the 'wrong' way). As you wear clothes, wash and put them back, turn the hanger the 'right' way, facing away from you. After a season has passed, donate anything you didn't wear - from that season.
  2. If your shoes are on a flat surface (like a shoe rack or the floor), face shoes toe to heal, like in the picture. It will take up less space and allow for more shoes or more open space, depending on your system.   
  3. Hang something on the back of the door or on the wall. Hooks are our friends! Necklaces, belts, purses, hats, scarves, even strappy things like tank tops can all hang on hooks.
  4. Get rid of boxes. Even if it's a fancy pair of heels, there's no real reason to keep shoes in the cardboard boxes they come in. Same with purses, even designer ones. If it's that nice, it'll come with a protective bag that takes much less space than the bulky boxes.  
  5. Contain and divide. If you have sloppy piles and stacks on shelves in the closet, consider using a shelf divider (shown from Amazon) or clothes container (shown from The Container Store) to create a steadier stack.


What Do I Want to Know About You?

In a recent conversation with some fellow organizers, a colleague asked what questions she should be asking her potential clients when first connecting with them. It made me think about what I want to know about you when we first connect. A few key points are really important to allow me to help guide you through the stress of your stuff and create the space you're longing for.

1) How long have you been struggling with disorganization? How long has the space looked as it does now? This will help me assess what kind of disorganization you're struggling with: situational, life-long or simply related to a certain area of your life (like work or paper).

2)  What have you tried in the past to be more organized? Knowing what has or hasn't worked for you in the past will let me hone in on your thought processes in relation to the space we're working in. It's always helpful to know if labels worked really well in the past, but color coding was annoying.

3) What is your goal? Being functional in a space can be different than feeling calm in it. Knowing where your things are is very different than suddenly sharing a space with someone else.

4) Is there a time frame or budget we should work within? If we're getting the home ready to entertain or there's a fixed income, then I can create a game plan to get you to where you want to be within the constraints that exist.

(Basement) Storage

Today we're tackling those storage areas that no one but you ever sees. Basement. Hidden closet. Storage unit. Attic. These guidelines can work for any of those spaces. Let's get started!

1) Some things are likely to be boxed or binned already. If they're labeled, take a peek inside to see if the contents match the label. If not, relabel. If it's unlabeled, take a look. Without going too deep inside, label the box with what you generally see in there: Memories, Games, Clothes, Photos, Toys, etc. These labels might only be temporary, so sticky notes may do the trick.


2) Start making those categories! Get boxes, bins, bags, and loose items near each other that are like-items. All the bins with clothes and the loose coats laying around get stacked up near each other. Same with toys, electronics, whatever else you're finding in there.

3) Take a break! (Remember: timing and energy level are important things to be aware of!)

4) Time to come back: Tackle one pile at a time. This time around, go through the boxes in depth. Pull everything out so you can see all of the category. Are these items you use (probably not if they're in lost storage areas - or at least not used often)? Are they items you love? Are they enhancing your life in some way? Have some empty bags on hand for trash, recycling and donations.

5) Repack and relabel. This time, you might consider labeling boxes more in depth: Johnny's memories; Toys from Childhood, Photos from Mom's House.

6) Stack or shelve accordingly.

7) Start at step 4) for the next pile. Depending on time and energy, it's fine to take breaks between categories.

Enjoy you're newly organized storage!

I'm Not Taking My Own Advice

If you read back through my posts, there's one thing I always reiterate: sort things out into categories first, then go through each pile to pick out what to keep. Yesterday, I started a new project with a client where I didn't take my own advice.

We were working in a basement that was purely storage and relatively full. There were already some really good systems in place from prior organizing attempts. Shelves had labeled bins on them, mostly containing whatever the label said. I saw clear categories on those shelves: entertaining, memories, gift wrap. The problem was there was a lot more of all those categories throughout the basement. Instead of pulling everything out of everything into those large piles I normally recommend (it would have taken a couple days and made a much bigger mess than we were starting with), we started at one corner and began to work our way around.

As we came across items that already had labeled bins on the shelves, we add to the bin. When we filled a bin, we'd start another, label it and put it geographically close to the first. The downfall to this, as the home owner was fully aware, is that after we've done our first sort, getting things into bins in a piecemeal way, we'll go back through all the categories and start to purge. We'll likely have to rearrange space on the shelves, as well as size and amount of containers. The plus side of doing it this way is that we're making clear, visible progress. An entire corner of the basement was cleared. All that remained were labeled bins on shelves.

This served as a good reminder of two points:
          1) There is no one right way to organize a space
          2) Guidelines are likely to show you the way, but there's no reason you can't step off the path to
              get a different view.


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