Before and After

Master closet in this client’s home.

This client’s closet was not terribly disorganized, but there was just not enough room to contain everything. Shoes were put out in the hallway.

After purging a lot of things, the clothes were reorganized by style and color, and accessories each had a home. We also made room for the shoes so the client’s hall won’t be cluttered anymore.

 

I organized most of this client’s home.

The biggest project in this home was the office/exercise room. As you can see from the before picture, this room was used as a catch-all that had become entirely useless.

We had to do a lot of serious purging in this room. We had a yard sale, threw many items away, and relocated things to different areas in the home. Now this client has an extremely functional his-and-hers desk, with plenty of room for exercise, as well.

Here are the before and after shots of closets in the hall and bathroom.

The client can now do laundry once again.

We organized the pantry, along with all the cabinets in the kitchen.

 

I worked on this client’s closets, along with a few other spaces in the home.

This closet is for the client’s two young boys. The right side, with white hangers, is for the younger son, and the left side, with blue hangers, is for the older son. Long sleeves are on the top, short sleeves are on the bottom, and jeans are folded on the shelves. Shorts are in small drawers under the hanging clothes. Shoes are arranged according to style and color; the younger boy’s on the shelves and the older boy’s in the cubbies.

This closet belongs to the man of the house. Clothes are arranged according to sleeve length, style, and color. Most shoes are on shelves on the wall, but there are also some on a small shelf on the floor.

This is the client’s personal/business office. You can see the progression that it went through. Photograpy equipment has been moved to the guest room. Catalogs are contained nicely in a basket on the floor. There is a long, narrow basket on the desk for tossing mail and papers as they come in (which must be emptied periodically, of course!). Decorative items that were taking up too much space on the desk were moved to another shelf in the room.

The dining room table had been used as a catch-all for incoming mail, scrapbooking stuff, children’s art projects, and business catalogs. Mail and papers were moved to the desk area in the office, scrapbook stuff was moved to a chest in the office, and children’s projects are being stored in this large plastic bin in a closet. Now they can use their lovely dining room for family dinners and entertaining once again.

My client’s dresser includes jewelry (see the jewelry picture in this album), jeans, pajamas, and workout clothes. Tank tops and camisoles are rolled in order to make use of every nook and cranny.

There was no filing cabinet in my client’s office. We created one out of this empty basket that was in the corner, and a filing frame. Much sorting had to be done first, but now the client will be able to find her papers with ease.

I organized this client’s jewelry into simple, inexpensive drawer organizers in her top dresser drawers. There are two drawers for necklaces, one for earrings, and one for bracelets. Rings are on a little shelf in the dresser cabinet.

This client’s closet simply was not big enough for her wardrobe. We relocated her clothes to a larger closet in the hall. There are cubbies and shelves for shoes, and drawers for scarves, shorts, and other small items.

The shelves in this armoire were stuffed with purses, hats, sunglasses, and other random items. There were also purses in three other different areas of the master suite. We designated this area just for purses, and are relocating the other items. We have clutches on the top shelf and larger purses on the bottom two shelves, arranged according to color.

This corner of this client’s office had a beautiful and useful chest under all that clutter. It had forgotten toys in it that were moved to the toy room. Now it has been designated for scrapbooking, and my client can just reach in there and quickly get what she needs.

I went and helped at a local school that was moving to a new location. Thirteen years of school and office supplies had been accumulated, so it was quite a project to get it all sorted and packed. This was very much a group effort and unfortunately, I was not there for the “after” pictures. Of course, they would just be pictures of boxes, anyway. I hope to get back there again to help them settle into their new building.

This is the first room I was helping in. There were art supplies and various curricula, mostly put in there at random.

Another shot of that room. The lady who was working with me had to go through the different supplies and tell me what we were getting rid of. What was left was placed into designated areas with signs. We also did some packing and labeling.

After the first room, I was given free reign to work on the office supply cabinets. There were various boxes and bins, so an attempt at organizing had been made, but given up on.

Here is the other cabinet, which included office, cleaning, and first aid supplies. Again, this was a moving job, so I was in charge of consolidating all the office supplies into one area, discarding out of date items, and keeping like items together and labeled.

New organizing supplies were not in the budget, but I found these great little bins. Things had just been thrown in haphazardly, so I assigned bins for specific uses and found some little labels to make it easy to locate what office workers are looking for. For example, tacks, paper clips, fasteners, glue, and post-it notes.

Here are some more of those bins for tape, clips, and velco. It looked like there was some confusion about how many supplies they had. That can be a problem when there is a lack of order. You can’t find what you’re looking for, give up, and buy more. After this, the bins and supplies went into boxes to take to the new building.

Well… technically, this should be entitled “During and After.” This client asked me to come in and organize all the books in the house, first by subject, and then by author. She had an entire wall of books in the office, one large bookcase in the family room, and one small bookcase in the guest room. First, with much grunt work, we removed all the books and put them in piles all over the house, according to categories.

Here are the office bookshelves after we removed most of the books.

Here is the Theology Section.

My client did have to do decide which books to part with, in order to make everything fit. This is difficult for many people, and I am ready to give “tough love” to help my clients figure out what they can do without. After deciding which books would go back on the shelves, we alphabetized each section by author, and returned them to the shelves.

“After” – Here are the office bookshelves after the books have been put into their categories; General Theology, Bible Commentaries, Bibles/Devotional books, Fiction, and History.

Now this client will be proud to show her library to guests, and the family can easily find the books they are looking for.