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.

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.  

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

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.

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

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.

• Keep things low so that they have easy access
• Use bright colors and repurpose things that you already have, like the green covered crate in the photo that holds American Girl Dolls
• Create a home for everything so that they can truly put things away
• Use labels or tags with stickers, photographs or words so that even grandparents, friends and babysitters know where to put things away
• Start asking your children to clean up their toys when they are little so that they get into the practice
• Baskets, bins and hooks make it super fast and easy to clean up

Ideas for a few common kids organizing challenges:

Art work:  Display on the wall with an inexpensive collage of frames, best sources are Ikea or Michael’s when the 40% coupons are out.  Rotate often.  Keep the best of the best only and store it under the bed in one long flat plastic box.  Weed out the old at the end of each school year, make sure the name and date is on it.  One box per year is overkill, your children will not thank you for saving it when they are 40!

Sports Equipment:  Galvanized trash cans are great for balls, bats, lacrosse and hockey sticks, skis, poles and more.  Also, look at Home Depot for the Fast Track wall system by Rubbermaid for the garage.  For about $200 you can store bikes, skis, racquets and balls and much more up and off of the floor.

Toys:  For toys, it can be out of site, out of mind.  So if you want your children to find things to do on their own, make it easy.  Keep all supplies for any activity in one place.  I recommend lots of shallow bookshelves that they can reach with fun bins to hold little pieces.  They can be  from Target, Ikea, built in or something you have had for a million years.  (Consider painting in a great color.)  Make sure the bins are not overstuffed with broken and unloved toys.

Clothes:  Make sure that hanging racks are low and that pj’s, socks and underwear are in the bottom drawers.  Don’t overstuff your closets and drawers with clothes they don’t like that don’t fit.  Put a row of cute hooks on the wall or buy a great coat tree.  Google coat tree and you will find ALOT of cute ones.  Great for bathrobes, pj’s, uniforms and more.  Use the back of doors and inside walls of closets if you have room.

School and Art Supplies :  The most important thing is to find the best space in the house and keep all of the items together.  It maybe a kitchen drawer, a closet or bookcase in the office.  Where ever it is, if it is all together, it is easy to see when you run out of things.  Also, kids should be able to set up a craft and get it going on their own if they know where all the items are.  Cleaning baskets are great to keep on the table with markers, rulers, glue, stamps, coloring books and more.  Easy set-up, easy clean-up.  Also, look for fun traysto hold projects that might not get finished before you need the kitchen table.  Pier One always has lots of trays as does Target and Michael’s.

If you have a trouble spot and need some ideas, give me a call at Spruce Organizing.  I have a file of ideas for every room in the house and a basket of current catalogs for everyone from Serena and Lily to CB2.  Pottery Barn and Land of Nod are great but they are not the only source for great kids stuff!

Art Studio after. Click to view the before

It is hard to be creative when you have no room to create.  Or, maybe you have an actual room –  but it is covered with all of the great stuff that you have bought and saved for your big moment of inspiration.  That is what happened with this client.  She had a funky attic room with awesome (depending on your love for chinz) wallpaper.  The problem was that all of her tools and supplies were burried in boxes on the floor.  I loved this project!

We decided to offset the retro wallpaper with bright, contemporary furniture from Ikea and to sort all of the supplies into groups and store them in bins, boxes, gorgeous jars on display and some rolling oversized drawers for unfinished projects and a huge bead collection.  It took us 8 hours to sort supplies, hang curtains, assemble the desk and book shelf and install great containers.  The client used her own time to shop at Ikea based on items that we picked out together.

This is how the client felt a month later…  ”Since your help in my art room, I’ve made some cards, earrings, and Kurt and I did some drawings that we used to make some metal art (not in my space!). So, clearing out and organizing that space made all the difference in my creativity.  Thank you!!  It was also really nice to be able to show that area to friends from work when they came over for the xmas party.”

1. Tackle the mess in small steps. Find hidden minutes in your day and tackle one stack/drawer/pile at a time.  If you spend 30 minutes each day focused on one area, at the end of the year you will have completed 182.5 hours of organizing.  (The average home office takes between 12 – 20 hours to complete.)  So, while the pasta is boiling, clean out a utencil drawer.  While you are on-hold, sort through a stack of papers, before you hit the grocery store, clean out the fridge.  You get the picture!
2. Filter what comes into your space. If you arrive home or at the office with an armload of stuff, set it down and sort it out.  Immediately, recycle the junk mail.  Kids stuff to kids rooms, homework to backpacks, boots to ski boot bags, laptop to charge station.  If it is something you don’t want/love/need, slip it into the donate bag or put it onto KSL.com to sell.  The first step to getting organized is to purge what you don’t want.
3. One in, one out. If you buy new slippers, get rid of an old pair.  If you get a new camera, recycle the old one.  Or two.  Clutter happens when we have too much stuff that we no longer use taking up space.

Like anything, getting started is the hardest part SO, start small, work steadily and minimize what comes into your very valuable space.