Monday, May 21, 2012

A Place for Everything

TWO PUGGLES: Icky and Lily G. (Such personality!)
 School is out, summer school is in, but since my last post I've learned quite a bit about myself and what I love to do. For a long time now, I've known that I love organizing, and that organizing is a great skill to have, but I never realized that organizing could be a career.

I've spent the past couple of weeks reading blogs, books and magazines on organization. I even bought a book on starting a professional organizing business: How to Start a Home-Based Professional Organizing Business by Dawn Noble. And as if that wasn't enough, I've been telling everyone that I know or meet about my new, but not-so-new love. I couldn't believe that I could eventually get paid for organizing!

But before I jumped right into things, I wanted to get my feet wet. I spoke to a professional organizer about potentially shadowing her, and even began re-organizing my apartment and a family member's house. But the best part about organizing isn't the money or having a clean space. It's about helping others live more efficiently. It may sound extreme, but I feel like I can give others the gift of time by making their time more efficient.

Statistics that may be true or false (whatever) say that a US executive wastes 6 weeks of the year looking for things. Even the average person spends 2 weeks out of the year looking for lost things (like keys or paper work). That's a lot of vacation time, reading time, or just time to try something new! I realized that whenever I needed something I couldn't find, I would just buy something else! I found like 5 Advil/Tylenol/Motrin bottles and all you need is one! Or whenever I didn't have the time to do laundry and ran out of underwear, I would just buy more, thinking that I would need another pair anyway. How much money could I save in a year by spending a little more time organizing my space to be more efficient? How much time could I save?

So here are some pictures from my first organizing attempts. I'm not naming names, but it was a pleasure to support someone who has supported me so much and truly loving every minute of it. We have agreed to work on little organizing projects throughout the house during summer. This past week, a bedroom and a linen closet are nearly complete. There are just a couple of bins left to sort through!

Here is one example of the before and after! (Keep in mind this was completed in one afternoon, with four people.)

  
Before
After
WOOHOO!! This is the same shot, before and after. There were no new items purchased or added into the room. But now, this room has a function, and a lot of things that filled the room over time were able to be donated. About 8 bags of donated clothes, bags, and jewelry left the room, while about 5 bags of garbage left the room.

Before

After
Books were put on the bookshelf for now, but there are future plans to have a library in another space.

Before
After
Many of the items in the before image were cleared and placed in the attic where they belong. Besides that, we have the infamous bag of bags that everyone has somewhere in their home. There was also a basket of linens that was placed in the dresser after it was cleared out. The frames and decoration that we didn't donate were placed on the shelves above.

Before
After

And last but not least, the closet. What was not working was outgrown clothing, outdated clothing, old hangers, the usual. So we bagged up the clothing that was donate-able and what you see above is prom dresses and a few coats. Not bad, eh? For now, we are keeping all the wrapping paper together in a bin you can't see well in the photo. There were originally like 10 suit cases in the room, which we reduced to 2 in the closet so there would be no trips to the attic for every vacation.

So there you go! Enjoy! I will be posting a lot more since it's summer time and there will be plenty of things to oggle at.

Things to look forward to: 
  • Linen Closet Before and After
  • Tips for Organizing
  • Apartment Pictures!


1 comment:

  1. Thanks Pea! We couldn't have done it without your guidance! Can't wait to conquer the next project!!
    Love Cindy

    ReplyDelete