On many occasions clients have commented to me, “you must have the perfect home and office.” Knowing the truth of this, It was not a great surprise to get a call from another organizer asking for my help.

Marina Smith was a professional organizer in her early thirties. At the moment of our meeting, she was also a very nervous woman with long, dark hair and worried black eyes. She had arrived in to New York from Washington well in advance of the moving truck, and the delivery of her things, when they finally showed up, heralded trouble. Already in the habit of using professional organizers, this stressful move caused her to call me to assist her in establishing order.

It was raining hard when I arrived for our appointment. The movers had been so disorganized or in such a hurry to get done, they had left her big, succulent plants out in the courtyard to drown. Marina was practically frantic over the plants and it was the first project we handled. I was covered in mud by the time all the plants were hauled up the long flight of stairs and rescued from the downpour, but it was worth it. The plants were finally safely inside their new home and getting this done brought Marina relief.

The next thing we tackled was setting up all Marina’s furniture and things in the new apartment. We worked out a paper plan using my suggestions combined with Marina’s ideas. To back this up, using actual measurements, we cut rectangles, squares, and circles out of a giant roll of paper. Then we placed these geometric cutouts on the floors in the locations set down in the written plan. This way we could actually see if the plan was completely workable before we moved any heavy pieces of furniture. The plan did work well and we made just a few minor adjustments. As we set things in place, the confusion of the move began dissipating, and Marina got brighter and relaxed even more.

Order replaced the disorder at a fast rate. Pleased by our productivity, Marina started talking about how marvelous and perfectly organized my own home and office must be with all my knowledge and expert handling of things. It was a lovely speech and I truly hated to disabuse her, but this is what I said:

“Organizing is like taking a shower. There is immediate relief but it will not hold up for a year.

To be organized requires regular good habits and discipline just like staying clean. Nothing in this very solid physical universe maintains itself. Paint the walls and they look great, but two years later they start peeling and crumbling, and the paint has faded or yellowed. Make you bed in the morning and next day do it again. Wash the dishes and after the next meal wash them again. It is a repetitive process.

It works the same for a business. Promotion goes out and clients come in. But the client flow stops eventually if the promotion doesn’t go out regularly.

The whole point of organizing is to establish good simple systems. They are the backbone that supports the whole structure. Then these systems have to be maintained on a regular basis with the discipline of good habits and routines for the environment to stay orderly.

Even a top professional organizer who has a complete grasp of the mechanics of organizing cannot automatically make everything he or she owns perfect. It takes continuous work. Organizers are subject to the same rules as any other business, or creative, or personal activity involving papers and things. The busier and more productive the person is, the more expanded the activities, the faster the mess accumulates. Mail comes in daily by the truckload, things get bought, projects get started and left unfinished, sometimes it’s a choice between burning the midnight oil and getting sleep.

So it’s not any different for organizers than for anyone else. It doesn’t matter if the work gets done by oneself, or an assistant, or a professional organizer, as long as the work is completed regularly to standard and things go out faster than they come in. That’s key.

I know this is all very basic and general, so I’ll address your curiosity. My systems are very simple and clear. Files, drawers, cabinets, bookshelves, and closets are always in good condition. But do I always stay perfectly organized? I’ll let you guess.”

And, that is what I told Marina. Now you know.

***

We created a comfortable and aesthetic environment to suit Marina’s needs with all her plants grouped at windows for sufficient sunlight, easy maintenance, and to show them off. The layout of her new apartment was made to be simple and effective for home and home/office use. It all worked harmoniously for her during her stay in New York. And when Marina moved to California a year later, she continued to use the same systems.

***

BIO

Sande Nelson is an artist, writer, lecturer, and founder of Sande Nelson’s GET ORGANIZED where she has influenced the field of professional organizing and helped clients achieve a higher standard of living and working since 1982.

I don’t follow popular trends as a rule, but the name Uryha Kandelamos was so famous in the world of music as the man who brought new life and vibrancy to classical music with the power of his symphonic conducting that even I was impressed when introduced to him by a client. Of medium build with a wiry frame, thick graying blond hair and an even tan, he filled the room with his artistic personality — which made it all the more surprising when during a moment alone with me he sheepishly said, “I need your services”, and right then and there made an appointment for me to meet him at his home.

Uryha’s home was the ground floor of a brownstone on New York’s Upper East Side. He greeted me at the door and I followed him down a long entryway to a very large, elongated, sunken living room filled with a deep sea of newspapers. The mystery of why he wanted to meet with me became instantly clear.

“How may I help you?” I asked anyway.
“I can’t find my grand piano,” he said, “and I want to play it.”

OK. I could certainly help him empty the room of newspapers and get things in order but when I suggested we simply throw out the newspapers and release his piano from its burial ground, Uryha was horrified. “Oh no!” he said. “You can’t do that. Some of those newspapers have articles about ME in them and they all have to be gone through.”

As an alternative to looking through hundreds and maybe thousands of old newspapers made of raw wood pulp that had come alive with bugs, I suggested we simply go on line and get all the articles. Or, as another possibility, we could visit the newspaper offices and get copies of all his reviews and write-ups from their microfiche — we might even be able to accomplish that at the library.

“NO!” He was adamant. So I handed him the first pile of newspapers and said to start looking. It didn’t take very long after that for the magnitude of the task to become obvious. Uryha dumped the stack he was holding onto the hallway floor, threw up his hands in defeat, and stomped out of the room. A few minutes later, he came back with a giant ball of twine cupped in his hands. He knelt down over the stack he had dropped and energetically started tying up bundles while I gathered more piles. Then we neatly stacked the bound up newspapers for recycling.

The emergence of the grand piano was celebrated with a champagne toast. Then we called the manufacturer to collect the piano for refurbishment. During the time it was out for cleaning and repairs, Uryha’s living room went through a similar process — the removal of useful items and dumping of clutter. Once the room was empty, it was freshly painted and thoroughly cleaned. Furniture, books, and other contents were then setup for use, making the living room a comfortable work and entertainment space.

Among other improvements, one area of the living room was delegated for use as a cozy office space. We bought an attractive and functional desk and chair and some nice wooden filing cabinets that matched other decor. Essentials such as filing supplies were also purchased.

We setup a very simple and workable filing system for Uryha to make it easy to keep track of bills and other important papers. We chose a prominent shelf to house a collection of date and content labeled looseleaf binders containing all the article copies about Uryha’s wonderful work that had since been researched and printed from his new computer and printer.

“Now, when I’m in town, I play the piano at home at least two hours a day.” Uryha told me after we had completed our organizing projects. A new looseleaf notebook and a stack of plastic sheet covers sat on his desk where he was busily printing out the latest articles about himself. There wasn’t a newspaper in sight.

***

BIO

Sande Nelson is an artist, writer, lecturer, and founder of Sande Nelson’s GET ORGANIZED where she has influenced the field of professional organizing and helped clients achieve a higher standard of living and working since 1982.

You can reach Sande at:

–
Sande Nelson’s
GET ORGANIZED
212-947-8393 (O)
www.sandenelson.com
sande @ sandenelson.com (remove spaces)

“Go around to the back door”, he said. “You can’t get in this way.”

Why not? I wondered.

At the back door I was invited in by both Raquel and Tim. A narrow and dark foyer led to a bathroom. A left turn opened to Raquel’s music studio where she taught opera singers to sing in time with their music. I turned to the right into a kitchen with greasy dark brown walls crawling with bugs. I walked through the kitchen to another doorway where Tim beckoned and looked into a magnificent living room with cathedral ceiling, floor to ceiling windows, and literally mountains of stuff — the floor was invisible. Some of the piles nearly doubled my five foot two height.

I stepped through the kitchen doorway for a closer look and found two glue mousetraps stuck to the soles of my shoes. The row of glue traps Tim had put on the floor caught me! All the rest were empty.

Glue mouse traps and all, I slid into the living room for a closer look — a lot of the things piled about looked valuable. This wasn’t a garbage heap to just discard, everything had to be correctly sorted — garbage and flowers were all mixed together.

I peeled the glue traps from my soles and replaced them in their row. Then Tim led me along a narrow path through the living room to a stairway leading down. All the steps were invisibly buried beneath mounds of paper so I slid over this new obstruction and down the stairs. How this fragile, elderly couple walked up and down those steps at least twice daily I never figured out — but they did.

The bedroom was downstairs and a warren of other rooms opened from the sides of a long dark hallway. All were filled to overflow with forty years of financial records, memorabilia, and things of every description including possessions inherited from parents and grandparents as well as Tim’s hobbies — a printing press, photographic equipment and a full dark room, and a walk-in closet shelved with rows and rows of chemical vials for scientific experiments. All of it would have to be handled and disposed of correctly as Tim no longer wanted any of it.

After the walk through of both floors of the duplex apartment, we sat in Raquel’s studio to talk.

“We like to eat in four star restaurants and can no longer afford it if we keep the house so we want to sell.” Raquel said. “To sell, we have to empty the entire house and leave it in broom swept condition. We can’t get a decent selling price with the whole apartment filled up like this.”

“We already have a potential buyer”, Tim added, “and an apartment in Lincoln Center to move into. The work has to be completed rapidly as possible.”

They both looked at me. “Can you do it?” They asked together.

“Yes”, I said. “I’ll get it done for you on time.”

The first action I had Tim and Raquel do was to make a list of all the valuables throughout the apartment so we’d know what to look out for and nothing of worth would be overlooked and accidentally discarded.

“That won’t happen”, Tim said. “I want to personally inspect every piece of paper and thing before any decisions are made.”

“That’s fine”, I said.

An area of the living room was cleared for a workspace — theatre programs, menus, and other paper detritus got piled, tied and recycled. There was so much it took days to finish. Two comfortable upholstered chairs got emptied and dusted and repositioned in the newly opened space so Tim and Raquel could sit and go through things. Tim sat down and with a bow I handed him the first stack of paper records to go through.

“Forty years of old rent receipts from tenants upstairs”, Tim said with an exasperated sigh. “What did I keep all this junk for?” And he threw the stack over his shoulder into the Discard pile followed by hundreds of old ledgers and notebooks given barley a glance before they were dumped.

I found a carting company and made an early morning appointment for the first load of junk to be picked up. All the old ledgers and papers were bound with cord and neatly stacked at the curb along with two ancient refrigerators that didn’t work and an assortment of old broken furniture. Tom and Raquel had replaced a huge collection of old operatic records (that couldn’t be donated because nobody wanted them) with a CD collection. The phonograph records joined the rest of the stuff at the curb. Everything was ready with plenty of time for the removal company to come and take it away. And it was very important that this part of the job got finished in a timely manner — this being a prime New York street, Tim and Raquel could be heavily fined for leaving stuff for any length of time out on the curb.

I stood in the freezing cold in dead of winter with an icy wind blasting my body as I waited for the removal truck to appear. An hour passed. The appointment had been confirmed the day before. Where were they?

People started walking over picking through records grabbing some and making a mess of the rest. A crowd began gathering. Someone started yelling at me for throwing the records out and saying what a shame it was as she clutched a stack to her breast. A whole bunch of people joined her and yelled at me too. The crowd kept growing — pedestrians, boys on bicycles, passenger cars stopped and car doors began opening as people got out to look. The whole street was clogging up.

Finally, two hours late, a giant garbage truck slowly rolled to the front of the brownstone. The removal crew started yelling at me for the mess as they began collecting stuff strewn all over the sidewalk and street. The crowd dissolved. By now my nose was so red I could have easily replaced Rudolph and my hands and feet were blue. I went back inside to thaw out and continue working.

There was so much to do I increased my one assistant to eight. Everything in that apartment was dirty — thickly coated with years of dust and grime. Things being kept had to be sorted out from overall accumulation and then cleaned, sometimes dismantled, and packed correctly, sorted by type, and labeled for the move. The quantity was nearly endless. The apartment looked like Collier’s Mansion with Raquel’s grand piano and a floor to ceiling library of books which also had to be sorted for keep, sell and give away.

Way down the line, when the living room mountains had been chiseled down and carted away, the parquet floor suddenly appeared partially covered with a large, museum quality oriental rug. The rug got admired and sent out for cleaning and repair and then delivery to the new apartment.

An ancient toolbox filled with handmade tools that had belonged to Tim’s great grandfather was unearthed downstairs, buried like pirate’s treasure beneath a workbench covered in an enormous mound of assorted junk. The toolbox was over two hundred years old.

Working on this estate was a lot like participating in unearthing a forgotten civilization at an archaeological dig. A young man on my team discovered a stack of newspapers covering the whole of World War II in perfect, salable condition in a closet.

Other old things newly discovered brought back memories of adventure and travel and family. What remained very important to Tim and Raquel were not necessarily the things of highest monetary value but mostly those items with memories attached. Those were the things they wanted to keep.

Many of the old books, complete sets and rare individual volumes, were appraised and sold. But some of the old furniture such as a lovely set of twin beds with carved headboards turned out to have no real salable value and were given to a thrift shop.

Another rubbish removal company got hired after that first sidewalk fiasco. These guys backed me up completely each time they came and carried out giant loads of discarded junk.

Movers came and collected all the clean, packed things for the new apartment. My team set things up there too. The brownstone duplex got emptied completely and broom swept in time for the closing. Tim and Raquel moved into their new apartment with everything in good condition and setup to suit them.

After they settled in I created a correct filing system for them so they would never be buried in paper again.

Tim and Raquel are comfortable now in their new apartment in Lincoln Center and eating meals in their favorite four star restaurants.

—–

About Sande

Sande Nelson is a visual artist, writer, lecturer, personal organizer in new york and founder of Sande Nelson’s GET ORGANIZED. She has influenced the field of professional organizing and helped clients achieve a higher standard of living and working since 1982.

***
*Note: Names and personal particulars have been changed in every story to protect client’s privacy.

Then tragedy hit hard when, within a year of her marriage, her young husband died and his fortune was absorbed back into his family — they withdrew their support. Being resourceful, Helena went to work in the public school system as a gym teacher and, with careful handling, managed to hold onto her home and live well.

When I met her, Helena was eighty-two. Her body had thickened and she was bent almost double with severe osteoporosis. She still had every hat, shoe, glove and handbag she had ever owned. All this besides the handmade suits, gowns, tennis outfits and dozens and dozens of other clothing items and matching accessories accumulated through her lifetime.

The closet poles in that lovely apartment had ripped free of the walls and just hung there supported by nothing but the sheer press of clothes so tightly wedged they defied gravity. Extra free-standing portable closets on wheels were scattered throughout the apartment, also filled to the hilt with clothes — sixty plus years of them, beautiful and classic and virtually useless to Helena.

Sadly, Helena got stuck in the vision of how good everything looked on her when she was young.

“I’ll have all the clothes altered to fit me now,” she told me when we first met.

It wouldn’t work. The truth was there was not enough material to alter the clothes to fit Helena’s current shape.

Yet Helena had called me to help her get her closets organized so how was it possible for me to help her?

Helena’s goal made it possible — she really wanted the use of her closets back with her entire wardrobe color-coordinated by season and type so everything could easily be found and she could dress with confidence for all occasions.

“Yes,” I told Helena, “you can have that result.”

The hardest part of the job was prying loose the illusion that you can look beautiful at eighty-two in clothes sized and designed for a youthful size two.

Gently and patiently, I had Helena stand in front of her full length mirror and try on the oldest clothing and accessories starting with gloves and shoes. They didn’t fit on her hands and feet so we started Give Away and Sell piles right away. The old suit jackets didn’t span her shoulders and the skirts couldn’t be pulled up above her knees. Onto the Sell pile they went.

With any item she could abuse enough to squeeze into she looked at herself critically in the mirror. After many unsuccessful attempts to dress in these clothes she fought her way into a hot pink angora sweater. It stretched to the hilt on her old bent body and emphasized every unsightly bulge and droop. The sight brought Helena to tears before she accepted that these clothes were neither flattering nor could any amount of tailoring make them work.

Painful as it was, when Helena finally saw she treasured these things because of how nice she looked in them once upon a time, a major breakthrough occurred.

“All these beautiful clothes from my youth are useless to me now,” she said. “I can sell most and give the rest to thrift shops.”

And that’s just what we set about doing. By seeing this enormous accumulation of clothing as a liability instead of an asset Helena got on the road to getting organized. Her thinking also started to change. She began taking pleasure in the idea of getting clutter out of her home. The thought of contributing all those lovely things to outlets for young women who could use and wear them became appealing.

That moment is when the work of organizing Helena’s closets began in earnest and the Sell and Give Away piles grew rapidly into mountains.

The shoes, gloves, scarves, hats, and other accessories as well as the designer clothes they matched, all got sold. Any remaining items went to thrift shops. The portable closets were given away too. Apartment space tripled.

Once the closets were empty they needed to be fixed. We found and hired an excellent contractor to redesign the interiors and repair, paint, and then put in new poles and shelving. As soon as this was completed, it was a joy to setup all the dresses, suits, hats, gloves, handbags, and shoes that fit Helena. Now she had a realistic wardrobe to suit her age and lifestyle.

Helena was very happy. She could choose her outfits and find and replace everything easily. She also discovered that she had retained her verve for dressing well and could still look beautiful!

We even organized the costume jewelry, and yes, all the broaches, earrings, bracelets and necklaces matched her clothes.

After years of being closeted in clutter, Helena could finally live in comfort with closets that were spacious, functional and aesthetic. Over half a century of excess had been handled and a long awaited goal attained.

***

BIO

Sande Nelson is a visual artist, writer, lecturer, and founder of Sande Nelson’s GET ORGANIZED. She has influenced the field of professional organizing and helped clients achieve a higher standard of living and working since 1982.