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Getting Organized, Toys and All!

With the change in seasons comes the inevitable spring cleaning and the need for organizing the house. Barbara Streckfus, owner of A Space for Everything, a Professional Home Organizing Company, offers some handy tips to help bring some order into your home this spring.

Spring is here and so is that feeling that we should start organizing our belongings in our homes, just like birds nesting in the springtime. You look at the piles on the counters, or the mess in the drawers, and your first question is… where do I begin?

First, you should begin with a game plan. Write down your plan even if it is the “big picture” plan, then add in all the details. Next, prioritize what space is most important to organize. Is it the kids’ rooms? Is it the room for the new baby? Is it designing the family room to be more kid-friendly and adding more shelves to the one shelf/one rod closet?

OK! You have your game plan and you have prioritized what space is most pressing or bothering you the most. Now you have to take an inventory of everything in that space. You should set up a working area with a table and have three banker boxes to start marked: 1) charity, 2) consign, and 3) garbage. The items you want to keep should remain in the space for now. As your boxes fill up, get more banker boxes. Moving-and-storage companies, along with Costco and Staples, sell banker or file boxes. If something does not belong in this space, it is moved to its proper home. Everything should have a home and each space should make sense based on the purpose of the room or space. My favorite saying is to organize “like with like”. I also find myself saying “Touch something once.” If you touch it once, it will then be used and put away in its proper home once you have finished.

As you start organizing your space, you have to make decisions about what you want to keep and what you want to move out of the space. This is sometimes a difficult process for some of us, as we either can’t decide or we want to keep everything. This is where an organizer can help. Organizers are good at helping you make decisions, but ultimately these are your decisions. Once you continue through this process and touch everything, even under the beds and hidden behind the door, you are then ready to put your space back together. You can then decide if you need additional shelving or if containers may be helpful to store the items. If you are organizing a toy room, you will love the open canvas bins at the Container Store. They can be labeled and they are an easy way to sort the categories. For example, one bin for LEGOs, one bin for Playmobil, one bin for Barbies, et cetera. For toys, I love open shelving with the canvas bins or woven baskets. They provide a clean look and are easy for the kids to play with their toys and easy for them to put their toys away once they are done.

Organizing to me is fun, not a chore. I think of it as a puzzle that needs to be put together. Everything has a home and our job as professional organizers is to find the best home for everything. We can install closet systems, shelving, and garage systems to help a family get organized and to help find the right home for all of your belongings. As my company name says, we find: “a space for everything” and we put “everything in its space.” Have fun and happy organizing!

Barbara Streckfus has been organizing homes and senior apartments for over 12 years. Her team of organizers at A Space for Everything can unpack and organize your home so you can sleep there the first night. Barbara and her team love to organize, stage and design spaces. Need more space? No problem, they can find it. Need more storage? They can design and install it. For more info, call (415) 971-5180 or go to www.aspace4everything.com.

Comments

Other than organizers there

Other than organizers there are other ways to de-clutter your home such as business self storage. You can store unnecessary things like toys, appliances and etc. Storage facilities are safe and secured so there's no need to be worried about getting robbed.