Spruce Organizing

Do you Pinterest, yet?

Michelle Powell — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:00:41 +0000

In the event that you are not familiar, Pinterest (www.pinterest.com) is an addictive site for those visual people who love style of any kind. It is a site that streams ideas, crafts, fashion, travel, motivational sayings and more. The great thing is that it allows you to pin and save anything you like onto electronic bulletin boards that you create – of interestes that are uniquely yours. Oh, the numbers…Pinterest drew 11.7 million unique visitors in January. More thatn Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined. Be careful, it is addictive! (But clutter free, I LOVE it!)

Moving Sale, Beautiful Furniture

Michelle Powell — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:00:49 +0000

One of my favorite client families is selling their Park City home and moving to Colorado by April 1st. They have a beautiful home and have decided to part with several very lovely, excellent-quality pieces of furniture. If you are in the market for a

Down filled reading chair
A fun contemporary living room set
Glass matching coffee and end tables (Bernhardt)
A hand painted library/buffet table
A rustic kitchen table and 4 chairs
A gorgeous antique armoire with beveled mirrored door
A lighted corner cabinet
The buffet pictured above, listed at $400. Measurements 54″ x 19″ x 38″.

These are all beautiful pieces in excellent condition from high end furniture stores. Please call for additional information, they are anxious to sell!

Mid Winter Clutter Blues

Michelle Powell — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 18:33:01 +0000

Pick up most any women’s magazine right now and the theme is redecorate, add color and organize. This is the time of year when we all have been indoors for months and the house is looking a bit stressed. Salt and dirt from the roads has covered the floor, the outdoor clothes cover the mud room and the laundry and paperwork piles just continue to grow.

My advice? Go through the magazines and choose the colors and changes that you want to make this spring. Dog ear the catalogs and plan for exciting new improvements. But first, make room for the new by getting rid of the old.

Commit to a time to de-clutter whether it is one hour each day, Tuesday evenings for 2 months or a 3 day marathon. Schedule it on your calendar if you have to!

Using boxes, bins or garbage bags, start at one end of the house and go through every drawer, closet and shelf. Enlist your family’s help.

Sort your unwanted items into piles of trash, donatations or items to sell.

Move though the entire house until all that remains is the stuff you use and love.

Finally, fill your car with everthing unwanted and drive it away! Your home will then be ready to fill with all of the colorful beautiful items that you have dreamed about all winter.

Photo compliments of home-designing.com, pinterest.com

6 Large Black Hefty Garbage Bags

Michelle Powell — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 04:36:43 +0000

This is the average number of bags of clothing that are removed from a Park City Master Closet. 90% of the items are donated locally, the other 10% is consigned locally. Do you have clothing, shoes, belts and bags that you no longer wear? If so, consider making a donation to one of the Big Brother Big Sister bins that are located all over town or the Christian Center located at 1283 Deer Valley Drive.

Successful Moving Sale

Michelle Powell — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 04:33:04 +0000

This June, we organized our first Moving Sale for a client. In order to merge households with a fiance, the owner wanted to sell most of her existing housewares. Spruce listed the larger pieces of furniture for sale on KSL.com (including this bed and mattress that sold for over $1700) and then held a moving sale. The client generated thousands of dollars and was able to pack up what was left in the condominium and put it on the market to sell.

Give it away, give it away, give it away now

Michelle Powell — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 04:09:04 +0000

This summer, I had the chance to visit Telluride, Colorado. While checking out the town, we came across a 20 year old amazing thing known locally as the Freebox. It is simply a shelving system created right in the center of downtown where people can exchange the treasures that they no longer love. While I think the shelves were not really representative of the beauty of the town, I loved the concept. It is a daily reminder for lucky locals that one person’s trash is is another person’s treasure.

With the seasons changing and the need in America for donations greater than ever (with the flooding, wildfires and earthquakes rampant) this is the perfect time to look over your former treasures to see what someone else might be grateful for.

If you need help finding homes locally for your unwanted items, email me for a great list.

3 Rules for Keeping Your Closet Beautiful

Michelle Powell — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 21:25:26 +0000

Now that your wardrobe is down to the essentials and staged beautifully so that you can see all of your favorite elements, adopt these 3 strategies for maintaining gorgeous:

Schedule maintenane sessions and put them onto your calendar at least twice a year. At this time, pull out evey garment that you have not worn in the past season and share it with someone who needs it more than you. A spring trip and back to school season can be great triggers for this step.
Obey the one-in, one-out rule. If you buy new jeans, toss your least favorite pair. The same goes with boots, bathing suits and work-out wear. Unless something is SO precious to you, it is time to make room for something new. When your closet is jammed, you will forget those old favorites and grab what is on top anyway.
Shop only when you need something, whether it is running shoes or clothes for an upcoming trip. When you arrive home with your purchases, refer back to rule #2 and toss what you have just replaced.

This may sound extreme, but with few exceptions it will work beautifully for maintaining the order that you have worked so hard to create.

Does your clothes closet need a makeover?

Michelle Powell — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 21:25:10 +0000

As with all great organizing projects, you need to evaluate what you have before you start shopping for products to improve your storage space. So, if your closet rods are jammed so that they sag, you can’t see the floor for shoes and luggage and you own more than 30 handbags, it may be time for a make-over.

After removing the itmes to donate, consign or toss, shop for some of these efficient organizing products (click onto words that are light blue to go to a site with product examples):

Felt Hangers: Sold in bulk in several colors, these hangers allow you to squeeze more items into your space and hug your fabrics so clothing won’t slip off.

Hooks: Great for hats, belts, bathrobes, jeans and scarves. Sold everywhere from Target to World Market. Why buy white plastic when you have so many other options?

Shoe Storage: Piles of shoes on the floor are an eyesore. Get baskets for your flip-flops and shoe racks that will allow you to go vertical. How about an unused bookcase or fancy armoire? The average PC woman has over 50 pairs of shoes.

Jewelry: There are so many options for jewelry, I love those that are visual so that you can see your treasures. Try a bulletin board or screened frame, leather or glass jewelry box or a simple hanging unit with clear pockets sold at BB & B.

Tackling your garage

Michelle Powell — Mon, 02 May 2011 18:22:19 +0000

Pull everything off of the shelves and out of the corners. Sort items into categories. (Sports, tools, decorations, files, bulk food etc.)
Eliminate what you no longer need and set it aside for trash, sale, recycle or donation.
Assign a home for each of your categories. Think in terms of zones.
Containerize. Do you need more shelves, a hanging system for skis and lawn care or maybe a tool bench? Don’t buy organizing products before you know how much of anything you have and what is going to stay!
Earmark time to maintain your new system. This should be seasonally at minimum.

Did you notice this is an acronym for PEACE? (An orderly garage realy can give you a peace of mind!)

Get Organized, Get Gorgeous!

Michelle Powell — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 01:48:49 +0000

When I write about getting organized, I usually point out the benefits: better health, less stress, simplification and creating space for new things. Lets be truthful. What we really want is for our homes and offices to look gorgeous! I think that moving into our 5th month of snow cover is only extra incentive to spruce up our homes by getting organized. Here are a few ideas for making your home look beautiful without financing a total remodel:

Eliminate the clutter so that you can uncover and enhance the beauty in your home. (I know, this is a big one, but it is the first step to getting gorgeous.)
Identify the style you love and the image that you want to project and add elements to reflect that look.
Get rid of anything ugly! Filing cabinets don’t have to be grey metal and bins do not need to be plastic.
Purchase colorful and beautiful office products for your paperwork.
Be truthful about how much stuff you really need and pare down the excess. (Think tupperware or luggage.)
Create dump zones to corral the stuff of life in order to prevent clutter creep.
Use beautiful containers that you already own creatively.
Embrace color with pillows, paint and flowers in your home.

Spring magazines and catalogs are FULL of gorgeous ideas for sprucing up your home within a wide range of budgets. Like most things in life, it is the first few steps that are the hardest. So, block out a day, get to work clutter busting and replace some of the most basic items in your home with things that you love that are functional at the same time.