Digging Out the Paper Piles

If you are like most people I bet you have a least one stack of papers waiting to be dealt with. This client had several with sentimental family papers she gathered over the years.

She tackled a pile, sorted them and surprised relatives with a package of memories selected just for them.

Garage Miracle

You've seen them, people who have gads of organizing products from the Container Store and still can't find anything. Maybe you are one yourself. One reason I rarely advise clients to purchase organizing gear is that products do not make people organized. People make people organized. You can usually make sense of your stuff with what you have on hand.

Here is a big exception: Fast Track by Rubbermaid. Look at this garage! It is neat and things are up off the floor and easy to find.

This easy-to-install handing unit has tool-specific hooks you can add to it. This one is holding:
2 bistro chairs
1 beach chair
1 folding stool
1 long outdoor extension cord
1 weed trimmer
1 garden fork
1 shovel
2 leaf rakes
1 kneeling pad
1 hedge trimmer
1 stepladder
1 large framed camping backpack

And all in four feet of space!

A dream job

How fun is this job? My clients moved into a home with a wine cooler.  My assignment: pick up their last five cases of wine stored at The WineBank, a climate controlled wine storage building, and organize it all in their new cooler.

As you can see, they underestimated what was in storage but my little Mini Cooper hauled all SIXTEEN (!) cases.

Then the fun began: unpacking those juicy gems and labeling them for their later enjoyment.

With the wine organized by type it is now easy for them to make their selection for dinner.

rePURPOSING Things: for Good!

I recently helped a client move from this spacious home.

They needed only a fraction of the furniture in this house for their new home - and you can imagine how much furniture a house like this can hold - so they did a very generous thing. They held a family and friends furniture sale and donated ALL the proceeds to the Parkinson's Foundation.

What an ideal way to dispose of unwanted items and do some good at the same time. Hats off to them!

Bicycle Safety

With sixteen years worth of kids sporting equipment, school projects, camping gear, construction left-overs and tools this Palo Alto garage was cluttered enough before a relative died and family memorabilia to sort "later"wound up the middle of the floor. Getting the bicycles out became a hazardous assignment.

Our goal was to make the garage passable, evaluate the family items, eliminate the ones we could and integrate the rest into a safer storage arrangement until the owner had time to really focus on them.

We accomplished our goal and in the process filled a van with items for Goodwill, freecycle and recycling.

The family things  are now in plastic storage bins, in one place and on a elevated shelf to keep them from the damp floor. Clearly labeled, it is easy for the owner to retrieve one box at a time for sorting .

Although the garage still needs more work, we met our goal to organize the family heirlooms and have safe and easy access to the bikes. After this initial project, organizing the rest of the garage will take no time at all.

Jennifer's Basement

I get so excited about the possibilities of each project that I dive right in and forget to take either a "before" photo or an "after" photo or both! Here is a project where I have a "before" and a "during." Some day I'll go back for the "after." In this case, by the time we were finished I think I was just too tired!

Jennifer's basement BEFORE

Jennifer is an artist who has many collections of interesting things she may one day use to make art: cards, suitcases, ceramics, galvanized tin. She also collects dishware that appeals to her. She is pretty organized and has a huge basement to stash all this stuff but it got to the point where just had way too much. She couldn't find things, they weren't put away in the right categories and she needed help.

We evaluated what we could get done in a morning, prioritizing what would make the biggest impact on her space. First off, organizing and slimming down the excess dishware would create more storage space for the art supplies.

DURING

This is just some of the items for her to take to a dish re-sale store.

Clearing out the dishes allowed us to create a central space for art supplies including odd items for assemblages. We consolidated all her linens in a dresser that was stored in the basement and used her suitcase collection to house seasonal clothes. Gift wrap was corralled in her basket collection. After she realized she would rather make art than spend her time repairing, refinishing or repainting the damaged furniture she had stored, we carted it off to the alley behind her house and where it miraculously disappeared between our trips to the basement for more.

There is still more to do but now things are easier to find and there are less things crying out for her attention. The guys driving by the alley were happy and she stands to recover some money from the dish re-sale shop. The most important thing is that she has more room for what really matters to her: her art.