Project Profile: Study Spaces
Happy back-to-school season! Let’s kick things off by giving you a well-deserved round of applause for conquering a whirlwind summer filled with BBQs, seasonal sports, packed schedules, graduation festivities, and all the other enjoyable chaos that summer brings. While we have a few more weeks of warm weather in Massachusetts, most families are getting into the back-to-school routine.
Set your kids up for success by establishing a dedicated homework area within your household. Arrange a specific location where your children can place their homework assignments to be completed before the next day. Having a designated homework spot at home serves as an excellent method to instill responsible habits in your children and motivate them to complete their tasks. Establishing a routine where they are aware of precisely where to do their schoolwork fosters structure and consistency from a young age. Regardless of the location you select, assembling a homework station equipped with all necessary supplies, workspace essentials, and gadgets before the school year begins will set both you and your children up for success.
5 Tips to Digitally Declutter
Digital Organizing is the type of work that elicits the strongest reactions from clients and peers alike. Most people say, “Wow, I should really do that.” Our lives are inundated with an overwhelming amount of digital clutter. From overflowing inboxes to a multitude of unused apps cluttering our devices, it's easy to feel weighed down by the virtual chaos. Use the tips below to get started on your own digital organizing project.
Project Profile: Forty Years of Files
When I describe the work that I do, there is nothing that gets a stronger reaction than the term “Digital Organizing.” One person recently asked me if this means that I rearrange rooms in virtual spaces, like the Sims. Most people say “Like files and stuff?” and I get to say, “Yes. Like files and stuff.” But it’s a lot more than that! Our digital organizing partnerships have been transformative for individuals and businesses. Creating effective systems and processes to work through excess, whether physical or digital, is an incredibly clarifying process that can make a huge difference in day-to-day productivity and satisfaction.
Back-to-School Dorm Room Organization Tips for Freshman Success
It’s almost back-to-school season! If you are starting your college journey, keeping your space organized is a great first step towards a successful freshman year. Moving into a dorm room and transitioning to a smaller, multi-functional space can present its challenges, but with the right strategies and products, you can transform your dorm room into a comfortable and organized living space.
Before you even start packing for school, be sure to do a thorough sort and purge of your belongings. The most critical part of organizing a small space is ensuring that you really want whatever you are bringing with you. Think about the amount of space an item takes up, how much utility it has, and if it is easily replaceable.
Project Profile: An Organized Escape
Clients love to ask us... Are you really organized in your personal life? For our founder and CEO, the answer is yes twofold – Stasia owns two properties and both are exceptionally organized. Her home on Moose Pond in Bridgton, Maine is a beautiful lakeside getaway across from Pleasant Mountain, complete with a guest house that she lists on Airbnb.
Master the Art of Packing Light for Stress-Free Travel
Summer is finally in full swing, and many people are preparing to embark on vacations large and small. Whether you’re taking a weekend on the Cape or a cross-country adventure, the task of packing can be a significant stressor before the relaxation can begin. With a few simple strategies listed below, you can master the art of packing light and ensure a stress-free journey.
Essential Gardening Organization Tips: Optimize Your Gardening Supplies for Success
Happy Gardening Season! There is never a bad time to take stock of your gardening essentials, but it is especially helpful to do it before the busiest time of the year here in New England. Whether you are a seasoned year-round gardener or a seasonal grower, organizing your supplies is an essential first step in setting your plants up for success. Gardening can look very different depending on your climate & physical environment. As a renter, I have been relying on planters, raised beds, and temporary storage solutions for all of my supplies. If you are a homeowner or have a generous landlord, you may have broader options for gardening or storage.
Project Profile: Garage Transformations
Believe it or not, your garage can make you smile. Garages are an often forgotten space, even though they can be incredibly useful if they are set up efficiently. I have been designing garages for over a decade and have been thrilled with how much a good system has been able to transform our client's storage areas. Many have insisted that they could never park their cars inside because of all of the stuff they need, or assured us that they are happy to build a shed to make more space. It is such a thrill to share the final result with them when we’ve created a home for everything. Lots of hooks, some drawers, and some shelving can make magic in a garage.
Is a Storage Unit Worth the Cost? A Comprehensive Guide
An organizer is often hired because a client just doesn't have enough space in their home. Many clients quickly jump to storage as an option if they can't store everything that they want to keep. You may find yourself considering getting a storage unit at some point in your life for this same reason. Or maybe you already have one and are reconsidering if it’s worth the cost to keep storing your items there. But are they worth it?
In the greater Boston area, it is difficult to find a storage unit of any size for less than $150/month. This comes out to $1,800/year, plus taxes and fees. This financial cost doesn't include the convenience cost of not having access to your things and the mental cost of living in multiple places. Sometimes it is worth it, but it is not an investment to be taken lightly.
Service Spotlight: Move Management
Our team does a lot more than organize! Did you know that you can hire us to help manage your move?
The city of Boston is uniquely frustrating in its moving cycles. With so many students among us, most of the population moves for either June 1st or September 1st lease terms. This makes for a very crazy move season - read on to learn more about how we can make your move as stress-free as possible!
April Showers Bring Eco-Friendly Organizing Tips: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
April showers bring May flowers; April blogs bring you eco-friendly tips & tricks!
This Earth Month, we want to bring you some of the best ways to get organized while keeping our planet healthy. Let’s start simple. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: reduce, re-use, recycle. These three R's are in order of importance and impact to our planet, and can be applied to organizing!
Project Profile: Digging Out and Downsizing
Happy Earth Month! For this month’s Project Profile, we are highlighting a recent downsize and move project.
This particular client was a local artist that had a lot of stuff to give away and wanted to keep as much as possible out of the landfill. That is also important to our team, so we were more than happy to help out!
This was such a big job that we couldn’t do it alone with a very tight 6 week timeframe. We collaborated with Sift Organizing and all got to work on downsizing this client from her 3,400 square foot home of 14 years in Weston to a 1,700 square foot apartment in Cambridge.
Efficient Hand-Me-Down Organization: A Simple Guide for Sorting and Storing Second-Hand Clothing
Growing up as the fifth child in a family of five kids, hand-me-down clothing made up the majority of my wardrobe. I loved the excitement of digging through a bag of clothing! With all the new-to-me fits, I would go through my old clothing to make my own bag of hand-me-downs to pass off to the next person. These hand-me-downs not only came from my siblings but also from various friends, neighbors, and extended family. There was a network of clothing being passed between various households. You never knew when a black bag would show up on your doorstep with new goodies. When we were out with our mom running errands there were frequent stops around town to drop off our own hand-me-down bags to others. This was a great way for us to see the impact that our own hand-me-downs were making out in the world.
Project Profile: Creating New Systems in Somerville – Part 2!
This client reached out to us after driving by our studio on Mass Ave. At that time, she and her family had been living in their house for two years but were not quite sure if they were on the right track with their storage, and struggled to create and maintain systems in their space. Her priorities were organizing her basement, office, and garage but after taking a look at her space during our consultation we expanded the scope of the project significantly. This client was ready to tackle her entire house and we were able to apply a ton of different solutions to meet every need. We transformed her office, updated all of the closets on the second floor, and even helped coordinate interior design updates in the primary bedroom!
To File Fold, or Not to File Fold, That is the Question
Professional organizers have all kinds of tips and tricks. File folding, popularized by Marie Kondo herself, is one of our favorite ways to save space and keep clothing tidy. Our clients are often shocked to see how much more we can fit into their drawers. But, is file folding right for you?
5 Items to Purge From Your Linen Closet Now!
Linen closets are one of the most straightforward places to organize. Linens, toiletries, and medicine are the only categories that really belong. Although it’s a high-use, generally organized space, you’d be surprised at what may be in the back of yours! As for quantities of sheets, towels, etc.; decide what you think you should own before going through your linen closet. Generally, two-three sets per bed in your house is a good rule to follow, two towels for each person, and four towels for potential guests or if laundry day gets postponed. Keep reading for 5 things you should remove when going through your linen closet.
Wabi-Sabi and the Imperfectly Perfect Lifestyle
“Wabi-Sabi” is a Japanese term that means imperfect, impermanent, or incomplete. Wabi refers to living with simplicity while being at one with nature, and sabi is defined as the ability to accept the lifecycle of anything as it is. To live a wabi-sabi lifestyle, you recognize and embrace that imperfections are perfect.
Project Profile: Over the Years at Central Square Florist
I met Jackie and David Levine in the spring of 2018 at a networking event for small business owners in Cambridge. Their family has been a pillar of the Cambridge business community for almost 100 years – Central Square Florist has been family owned and operated since 1929. I was thrilled to invite them to see our newly opened storefront just down the road from them on Massachusetts Avenue. This was the beginning of a fabulous working relationship with the Levines and Central Square Florist.
Project Profile: Move Into Your Dream Closets
This family bought their dream home in Somerville this winter, just down the road from where they lived for the past few years. Moving into a new build is exciting, but the lack of shelving and storage in the closets was a clear downside to the house. Our clients wanted to be able to move into their dream closets too, so they hired us to see what we could do.