Monthly Archives: May 2017

The word purge indicates getting rid of something.  Ho Hum.  Before you get the Eeyore complex think of the word fest.  It indicates fun, excitement and a party!  A purge-fest is a time set aside to purge with an organizer and your party will come when the work is done!

My client recently purchased a new closet system.  She emptied everything from her old closet into her bedroom, bathtub, shower stall… it was a hot mess!  But together we went through each item one by one and purged, hung, placed, binned.  We laughed, we sipped, we had a blast on purge-fest day.  With all the stuff this huge job only took part of a day.

The result?  One happy client who reports she LOVES her closet.  Everything is reachable, color coded, neat and tidy.  Now as she wears clothes she’d forgotten she had, she hangs the item inside out.  In 6 months, if she hasn’t worn it again, she will purge it. 

15 bags to charity and 5 more to the trash?  Now that’s a purge.  Watching her dance in her closet?  That’s a fest! 

There are 7 days in a week… 30 days in a month…

Some days are professional, others active, and a few loungy.  We have a hot season and a cold season.  So why are there 365 dress shirts in your closet?  Why are there 60 golf shirts?  Do you need 25 pair of jeans?  So you have a rainbow of colored pants, do you need three in each color?  100 pair of shoes?  I can live with that – it’s average.

The funniest question I have ever been asked is:  “Can you make my space bigger?”  While I am good at working organizational magic, “bigger” is only accomplished with a contractor, a sledge hammer and new walls.  More efficient I can do.  Let’s start with a purgefest! 

Remember there are only 7 days in a week… 30 days in a month… and we do live in a century of washing machines and dry cleaners! 

Children need toys.  Children like kitchen toys.  My own kids found delight in playing with my plasticware, and pots & pans.  Kids just want to be where you are, Mom.  I organized a kitchen for a busy Mom who seemed to be preparing meals and snacks for her little ones, all day long.  Not fun with a toddler wrapped around your ankle.  We gave this cutie a drawer of his own.  His sippy cups, his bibs, his bowls, and even some snacks.  We also placed safe plasticware in a reachable drawer just his size.  The unsafe gadgets and kitchenware are unreachable for the little ones.

It’s ok if the inside of the drawer is toddler messy… he is occupied and right next to Mom all day long.  Happy Kid… Happy Mom! 

Oftentimes I enter a home and find a very small closet space where the door actually swings INTO the closet!  Who designs this stuff?  I measured one closet space to discover the door was actually larger than the wall on which it swung to!  This means lack of space and causes a real problem for storage.  Solution?  Remove the door!

The same is true for a “reach in” closet.  These make great spaces in home offices.  Again, if your shelves are tidy, add a pop of color and make this space part of your room.  Contain all the supplies and doodads in colorful and fun bins. Your personality will shine through and you will want to spend productive time in the room.

If you have a neat and tidy clothes closet and storage is a problem, remove the door.  Store the door in garage or make a craft/utility table out of it.  You will gain an extra wall in your closet and your closet will breathe with the open space.

Spending $200 in storage bins for what?  If you start with the product you spend money on things that don’t fit your needs.  Narrow down the belongings so you know what you need and the sizes you need BEFORE you shop.  

BONUS TIP:  Organizing a tiny space you use constantly, even your handbag, will motivate you to bigger projects!