Ah, spring.

The flash of color from early flowers. The smell of freshly cut grass.

The sound of sneezes as everyone around quickly states emphatically, “It’s just allergies…”

Spring means lots of things to many people. Growth, rebirth, fresh start. But to many of us, it means spring cleaning! 

Let’s delve into spring cleaning, and look at how often you should clean many items in your home.

Everyday Cleaning

Let’s begin with things that should get some attention every day. That’s making your bed, doing the dishes, washing out the coffee pot, and cleaning out the kitchen sink. You also should wipe down the kitchen table and counters. 

Pro tip: wipe up messes in the oven and the microwave as soon as they happen. It’s much easier to clean them when they are fresh rather than when they are baked on. 

In the bathroom, it’s a good idea to disinfect your faucets, the toilet handle and seat, and wipe down shower walls with a squeegee.

A Few Times a Week

Give some attention to your floors. Dust mop those made of hardwood, sweep or vacuum entry mats, and vacuum any high-traffic areas, particularly if there are pets, kids, (or messy spouses!) in the house.   

Once a Week

It’s usually enough to go through the kitchen and wipe down the appliances weekly. Also, inspect the fridge and throw out expired food items (and those pesky, unidentifiable things that tend to get put back in until you’re sure they are bad. C’mon, no one is really going to ever eat those things!)

In the bathroom, sanitize surfaces. Dust furniture and vacuum those pieces that are upholstered. Change the sheets and pillow cases on beds that have been used. 

Vacuum or sweep and mop floors. 

Every Three to Four Months

You should clean your oven, whether it’s a self-cleaning model or one you have to buy oven cleaner for. Give the dishwasher a good cleaning — that means checking the filter for gunk and running it through with a vinegar cycle. Clean the lint out of the dryer vent as buildup can be a fire hazard. Wash the comforter living inside your duvet cover. Throw the bed pillows into the washing machine. Wash the range hood filter, this is where grease can really build up. Dust your ceilings and walls. Move the heavy furniture and vacuum underneath it. 

Twice a Year

Give some love to the gutters, whether you do them yourself or have them cleaned out professionally.

Annually

You can clean out your fireplace in the spring, after the fire season. (Have the chimney inspected in the fall before you start up again.)

Steam clean or shampoo carpets and furniture.

By no means is this little list exhaustive; there are many other items in the house that deserve the Cinderella treatment, from the pet bed and toys, to draining sediment from the water heater, your lampshades and curtains, the furnace filters, refrigerator coils, the windows, garage and basement, the handrails on the staircase, and the cup your toothbrushes sit in. 

What item is on your spring-cleaning list that you are about to get to?

“Are you thinking about selling your home? Maybe you thought you’d be in your home for a long time to come. Perhaps you thought your grandchildren would play on the same swingset your kids played on . . .”

Home sells for $100,000 over the asking price.

Home sells without ever hitting the market.

Home receives 56 offers in 30 seconds.

OK, maybe not 56 in 30 seconds, but it doesn’t stray too far from all we have been hearing: there is a significant dearth of available homes for sale. Any of these headlines could be written about any number of markets in the country, but our market here in North Jersey seems to be one of the hottest of them all.

Are you thinking about selling your home?

It’s a little bit of a scary prospect. Maybe you thought you’d be in your home for a long time to come. Perhaps you thought your grandchildren would play on the same swingset your kids played on, and sleep in their bedrooms when they came for long weekend visits. 

But every day, reading about the shortage of inventory for homes in your area gets you wondering if this is a really smart time to sell. 

Hmmm.

I spoke to a few home-selling experts in BIG (Believe, Inspire, Grow), a networking group for women entrepreneurs I belong to for some of their professional guidance.

Specifically, I wanted to know if my clients are thinking about selling, how much streamlining of their “stuff” and home prep is required to get the house to move, and if they did decide to move what would make them be an attractive buyer to the current owners of their next home. 

Sell Your Home “As Is” or Fix Up: A Real Estate Agent’s Perspective

Lucy Thompson, of Keller Williams Realty in Summit, NJ says that while it is still a seller’s market, the amount of work done to prepare a home for resale directly impacts the selling price.

“It boils down to what is more important to the seller — the maximum price achievable by pulling out all the stops or the average price achievable by leaving buyers to use their imaginations,” she says.

“There is a direct correlation between the prep work done and the rewards,” Thompson said. “Sure, you can leave everything ‘as is’ and look ‘average’ on the market and still find multiple buyers and perhaps achieve over list, or you can go all out and declutter, clean out, touch up painting where needed, spruce up older parts of the house, and fix red flag items before photographs are taken and showings start and, as a result, achieve astounding results, leaving no money on the table at closing.”

Regardless of what you may have heard, it is always a beauty contest and a price war, and you don't want the buyer to start asking for credits or work to be done when they feel they are already paying way more than they expected, Thompson said.

“It is nearly always better to invest time and money up front and get ready for listing rather than leaving things to chance and neglecting, at your peril, things that make buyers wonder what else is going on ‘behind the facade’,” she said.

Getting Mortgage Ready: Tips from a Specialist

What if you are on the flip side of the sale? You have your house all ready to market  and need to find a new place to call home. What can you do to make yourself look the most viable to an active home seller?

Cathy Maloney of Guaranteed Rate Mortgage in Chatham, NJ also suggests taking the time to do some “prep work,” although it is a different kind. 

She suggests that buyers not only secure a preapproval letter from a mortgage lender, but an actual mortgage commitment to make them as strong as a cash buyer. 

“All you will need is a sales contract and an appraisal to close because you can show the seller that you have your financing all set and approved and underwritten and you’re as strong as a cash buyer,” she says. “Instead of showing your bank statement that says you have $1 million, you can show a mortgage commitment that says the same, which will help people choose you.” 

So there you have it. It’s always better to do all of your prep work and not allow “chance” to figure into the equation.

Give me a call if I can help you tackle the decluttering process, whether you are getting your home ready to take advantage of this market, or just want to live more comfortably in your home. Either way, I can help you achieve A Simpler Life Now.

And here we are again — the beginning of a new year.

If you have been following some of my advice in this blog space, then many areas of your house have been streamlined, either in preparation for a downsize or just so you can live more comfortably in your space.

The beginning of a new year is a great time to assess your living areas, including your kitchen. Look around — has some of that clutter snuck back up on you?

It is just so easy for this to happen — please don’t think ANYONE is immune, including me.

Why do we let the clutter build up, and what should we do about it?

Keeping things we like around us is comforting, even if we have way, way too much of it. Cozy throw blankets. Aromatic candles. Well-loved books. Kitchen gadgets. These are the things that soothe us. But when the sheer amount of our loved items gets out of control and starts living in piles, the comfort becomes stress.

And then there are all those holiday gifts. Ones where the gift giver was so spot on, that it was something you just bought for yourself. Or ones where you might think that the gift giver never actually met you before!

We discussed the boxes of holiday decor that never make the cut. Resist the urge to pack it away again. Make an appointment right now for a local charity — like the Vietnam Vets — to come and retrieve these and other things you can part with. Just chose a date from their interactive calendar and set the stuff out early that morning. They will even leave you a receipt for tax purposes.

Pat yourself on the back for using all the at-home time during the pandemic to attack those junk drawers, scary closets, and seemingly bottomless attic and basement areas. Goodbye lidless Tupperware! Even the fridge was a project we took on together. Begone, soup greens from the Bush administration. (No judging if it was even the first Bush!)

But don’t rest on those laurels. This next go round should be a bit easier since you have gone through it all recently.

Start with the “what-if-I-lose-those-10-lbs” wardrobe items, and progress into the heels that were oh so cute — and expensive — but hurt each time they were worn. Gift or donate. Have you again accumulated take-out containers? Update some stained ones and recycle the rest.

There’s no need to fill up all your storage areas 

People tend to fill up their storage area with as much as it can handle. This makes it harder to find exactly what you are looking for, whether it is that purple scarf hiding among dozens of other scarves, or the warranty information for the smart TV.

So why do we have three unopened ketchups in the pantry and four packages of new panty hose (when was the last time that we actually wore pantry hose)? Is the fear of “running out” of something so great? Is it because the sale price was too good to walk away from? What would actually happen if we ran low on extra toothbrushes?

Is it because we just know that as soon as we get rid of something we will discover we need it? Right away?

It’s probably a little bit of all of that. And developing a reasonable approach to tackling the clutter is the only way it will get reduced.

Whether you do a room at a time or focus on a category like books or purses is up to you. Don’t start too large. Doing one dresser, or even one drawer in a dresser, is a perfectly good starting place. 

The professionals at A Simpler Life Now are really, really good at helping you figure out what to keep and what you really don’t need anymore. Please let us know if we can help with your projects.

If you’re thinking that downsizing might be in the cards over the next year or two, you can really get a jumpstart on paring down your possessions by starting with an edit of your holiday decor.

Streamlined holiday decor in neatly organized, well-labeled storage boxes is a home decorator’s dream! With a little work, this can be your reality. 

Holiday decorating should be fun. It should conjure up wonderful family memories. It should not be a chore because of the amount of stuff you have to contend with.

There are certainly going to be treasured family decorations that came from your parents and grandparents that you will pass along lovingly to your children when the time is right. These are special and should be stored in special padded cartons to preserve and protect them.

Those aren’t the items we are discussing today. I am talking about those junky plastic ornaments that leave a messy trail of glitter. The little Rudolphs with broken legs, the Singing Santa that no longer croons, and the dozens of little dreidels that were once used as party favors at a long-ago Chanukah party. 

Downsize and Organize Your Holiday Decor

Think about it: do you have boxes and boxes of decorations that you don’t even bother to take out from your attic or basement? Commit to going through them one last time to see if there is anything that really warrants saving, then donate, sell, or toss the rest.

1. You don’t need broken ornaments. You will never reattach that little hook on top.

2. Throw out the package of little hooks you bought five years ago for when you thought you would actually repair them. 

3. Pull out some of the really cute holiday cards and decorations your kids made back when they were young and display them. Take a photo of the rest, offer them to your children, and when they say “no thank you” toss them out.

4. Donate “still good” but “not good enough” items.

5. When it comes to putting items away, you can store round ornaments in egg cartons to protect them.

6. You can buy a store-bought reel for your Christmas tree lights, but you can also get creative and be efficient by wrapping them around coffee cans.

7. Sort, label, and consider storing much of your treasures in clear bins to help you identify quickly what is inside.

8. Put items away in reverse order to how you need them. For example, make sure you can access the skirt for the tree before the tree stand. 

9. Take a photo of your decorated rooms and store all of those items together in a storage box with the photo mounted on the outside for easy-peasy setup.

Your taste may have changed over the years. Perhaps your old tree was brightly colored and now you prefer a softer pallet. You can list unused decor on Facebook’s free marketplace groups. They will get gobbled up. 

The time to start this project is now! As you are putting away the ceramic pumpkins, the witch cauldron for candy, and the skeleton door decor, go over some of the Halloween things in the box that didn’t make it out, and think about getting rid of some of it. 

And if turkeys, gourds, and pilgrims are part of your decorating plan, you can use those decorations as a warmup to the big purge.

Of course, if you’d like help, give me a call.

We save it. We move it. We try to get rid of it. Then we buy more of it.

I can’t complain. If it wasn’t for all your stuff, A Simpler Life Now might not be in business. But try as I will to share with you many of the objects that you might consider eliminating before your move, your stuff stays put. 

What can we do to tame our stuff?

A classic George Carlin monologue from his stand up show delivers a great take on our relationship with our stuff.

“That’s all your house is: a place to keep your stuff,” he says. ”If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it.”

My favorite part of this sketch is when he talks about packing your stuff for vacation. Sometimes, he says, you do a mini-excursion during your vacations and you have to edit your stuff down even further. 

“Oh, no! Now what do I pack? Right, you’ve gotta pack an even smaller version of your stuff,” Carlin says.

Figuring out what to do with stuff is the most challenging part of my job. All my clients have too much stuff. Lladros, Hummels, china, Waterford, Lenox, Corningware, bags, suitcases, and so much more stuff.

They hire me to help them pare down that stuff, and it isn’t easy often because of the sentimental attachment to it.

• “Oh, my long-deceased mother collected those Hummels.”

• “I got that Lenox vase for my wedding.”

• “Yes, I know, it’s been sitting in the china closet unused for 40 years, but still. My daughter made me that handprint when she was in preschool, and I keep it next to the one my granddaughter just made me.”  

My job, if I do it right, is to convince my clients that it is not the stuff itself that is important, but the memories that the stuff brings up. 

So think about some of the stuff you can part with so that you can live a more streamlined life. You will still have the memories. You can:

• snap photos of the stuff. 

• write about the stuff in a journal. 

• take a video of yourself describing the stuff, using it, and telling about its origin.

But you don’t need to keep (and go to the expense of packing and moving) the actual stuff. I hope this doesn’t sound harsh, but it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to actually want most of it anyway. 

That’s option A. If you can’t do it, then call the realtor so you can move to a bigger house. Tell them you ran out of room for all your stuff.

Back in May, we ran a blog called 20 Items You Can Trash Right Now. It was about those things that take up  much needed space in our homes, making things look messy and overrun. And, yet, we keep them.

Maybe it’s because we want to be prepared “just in case.” Maybe it’s for sentimental reasons. 

The sad truth is, that often even though we have a supply closet full of those items, we often buy something new when we need it either because it is just a bit off, or because we don’t know exactly where to find it. 

This month’s blog is a follow up to that one, with some more specific ideas — because so many of you reached out to tell me that you wanted more. 

What? You haven’t done the first round yet? Well, start with either list and then migrate to the other. 

More things you can dispose of right now that you will never miss, but that, with their absence, will give you a lot more space and a sense of control.

This time, we break it down into five main areas of concern: your closets, the kitchen, the kids, bedroom stuff, and media.

In the Closets

Sheet sets. Oh, you were saving some to use as drop cloths? Your painter will bring his own. What, you wanted some extras if anyone needs to go camping? Is anyone really going camping? You are saving some for when you rent a shore house? Didn’t that last shore house come furnished with sheets and towels already? Keep one extra set for every bed, and maybe one extra “just-in-case” set for each size. That is it. 

Extra blankets. Let’s say you had guests come one winter and there was a blackout. Everyone needed to bundle up with an extra blanket. Keep one extra stored for every bed in the house and enough for a guest or two. It’s not going to get worse than that. 

Unused holiday decorations. Those broken ornaments. And the ones you really don’t like but bought because they were on sale. Get rid of them. Keep what you put out, the sentimental ones, and special ones the kids made. Get rid of the rest.

The lampshades and curtain rods. Getting rid of all the extras will bring you back valuable space. No one is going to need the old candelabra chandelier shades.

In the Kitchen 

Cell phones. Flip phones might be making a comeback, but not those kinds of flip phones. You can donate these in bulk.

Paper clutter. Takeout menus. Phone books. Address books. Everything is available online. Use up the old extra napkins and plates from kids' birthday parties. 

Extra mugs that are from old companies. You have your favorites that you use. You can save enough for all that company who are visiting during that winter blackout and who all need a mug of hot chocolate to warm up at the same moment. You don’t need the rest. Donate.

Expired stuff. Suntan lotion. Spices. Even coffee. Use up anything that will expire soon before you buy more. Replenish your pantry from the back so that you reach for older stuff first. 

Jars — Mason and otherwise. Canning those summer cucumbers sounded like such a good idea, but if another summer passed and you still haven’t gotten to it, donate some of those jars. People are always looking for canning jars on the free-community based websites.

Drawers of power cords and chargers. You probably got rid of many of the items that they were supposed to charge long ago. If you can find the cords that go to those flip phones, pair them up.

Water bottles. You will be shocked at how many of these have declared residency in your kitchen. Get rid of all but the ones you use. 

Freebies. The chopsticks, condiments, napkins, and plates that have exploded. If you never use them, then stop saving them.  

Used sponges and toothbrushes. Are you saving them for cleaning? You really only need one of each, and you can keep updating it when you change out your current ones. 

Cleaning rags. Keep one bucketful in the basement, get rid of the rest.

Reusable bags, shopping bags, boxes. If you bring your own bags to the grocery store that is wonderful. Check them to make sure they haven’t gotten grungy and change them out if they have. Repurpose old Amazon boxes. You can cut them down to resize larger ones to mail your own packages. Save a few in each size — you know they will mysteriously replenish themselves in just a week or two! 

Kitchen toys: The panini maker, the vegetti, the fondue pot, the ice cream maker, the avocado slicer, the watermelon baller, the fat separator, the onion goggles, the fun-shaped ice cube maker, the popcorn popper, possibly even the air fryer and the Instant Pot? Everyone’s list of kitchen gadgets that they don’t use will look different, but everyone has one. If yours is in good shape (even brand new, maybe?), pass it along.  

Wedding gifts. The things you put on your wedding registry way back when sounded great. But did you really think you were going to use them? If they are still brand new in the box, or have not been used since the Clinton administration, donate.

All the vases from flowers. How nice that people keep sending you flowers! Donate some of those vases to the flower shop at the hospital or back to the florists.

Used candles. Name one dinner party you had where you didn’t put out fresh candles?

Your Kids Stuff — And Stuff for Your Kids

Whether those “kids” are just starting their college applications, or are having children of their own, they have left behind a lot of stuff.

Much of the stuff they used as a baby is not even up to code anymore. The crib bumpers — possibly even the crib itself — might be considered dangerous. 

Do save some special well-made toys that your children enjoyed that you might want to play with your grandchildren, but boxes of puzzles with pieces missing and electronic toys where the battery exploded and are now rendered useless do nothing but take up valuable closet space. 

Some of their sports equipment — cleats, bats, frisbees, sticks — could be brought to sports consignment shops or donated. 

Separately, your treasured items, whether they are ornate antiques, heavy furniture, or delicate China service, might not be of interest to your children in their streamlined lifestyles. If they say they really won’t want it, begin to check with antique dealers or even try listing a few items on eBay. This includes the stuff you inherited from your own parents and grandparents. 

In Your Bedroom

In your closet? Skinny jeans? Or your boyfriend jeans? Or high-waisted jeans? It’s hard to keep track of what is considered in style these days. Whatever the trends, if it doesn’t fit, donate it. Including those expensive mistakes. As for all that stuff that is “sure to come back in fashion,” even if it does, it will be tweaked just enough that you will want to buy the updated version of it.

Same goes for the stuff you are saving for 70s and 80s costume parties. Save a couple of things, and donate the rest. 

Ditto exercise clothes.

Edit your entire inventory of nearly empty perfume bottles and get something new that you love.

Media

The last category to clean out is all the media that is taking up space.

Old Jane Fonda tapes. No explanation necessary. Again, YouTube videos.

This goes for all the old albums, CDs, cassettes, 8-tracks, and more that you probably couldn’t even play even if they are in great shape. Check around for dealers and collectors who might be interested in what you have.  

As for the VHS tapes, Netflix is your friend.

Cookbooks? Save the few you actually use. You can find recipes for anything online.

I look forward to hearing about some of the great things you have done with all the space in the areas that you have reclaimed in your homes. There is so much benefit to be had from living A Simpler Life Now.

10 Things You Can Do Right Now to Alleviate Some of the Stress of Moving

“It seems such a waste of time
If that’s what it’s all about
Mama if that’s movin’ up
Then I’m movin’ out
I’m movin’ out”

When I started this blog on moving, I decided to begin with a song. Billy Joel’s anthem immediately came to mind. I wanted to offer a selection of tunes to get you humming, and my Google search led me to so many songs about leaving home. 

Country songs about breakups and moving on; songs about kids growing up and leaving home; and songs about the bittersweet feeling you get looking back on a life well lived, they were all there. 

Moving is one of the most stressful events in a person’s life, even for the most organized among us. No wonder there are so many songs about it!

Finding a home; packing everything up; deciding what to keep, give away and discard; the actual move itself, and wondering how you will fit into your new place (physically and emotionally) are all factors that elevate our stress levels through the roof.

Lots of people are rushing to put their home on the market to take advantage of the dearth in residential real estate inventory. Once the decision is made, they panic, because they look around and can’t believe how much stuff they have accumulated over the years.

Where do I begin? — They ask themselves. 

They call me with great urgency as they need to figure out fast what they should take with them. 

With some forethought, there are ways that you can manage some of that stress and anxiety.

The first step is to figure out what fits into your new space. This is the expertise of A Simpler Life Now, down to determining the correct number of place settings from your dining sets that you should take. 

If you follow these 10 tips, you will be singing a happy tune throughout your move.

1. Contact family members to see what they might like to have.

2. Get to know your garbagemen and recycling providers. Once you make the decision to move, you should spend time each week tossing out the stuff that is unwanted. 

3. Decide if an estate sale or online auction is for you. Perhaps you have valuable sterling silver, artwork, or gold items that you can sell.

4. Think about repairs you should make to your home that will help it sell such as a new coat of paint, removing old carpeting, and some attractive landscaping. 

5. Declutter, declutter, declutter. And then declutter some more.

6. Call me to help you organize and stage your home for realtor photos.

7. Sort through junk drawers, closets, attics. Figure out what you have and start to clear it out.

8. Remove photos from their frames and keep just the photos. Our framed photos take up so much space!

9. Check your spices and cans to make sure they are not expired. Is your make-up old too?

10. Be on the lookout for days in your town when you can drop off old chemicals and cleaning products. Did you know that you can use cat litter to help dry up the paint in old paint cans? Once the can is empty, you can throw the can in your regular trash basin. 

    
    A Simpler Life Now can help you with any and all of the above, and get you singing with happiness again!

Most people have too much stuff, and, honestly, a lot of it is, well, garbage! 

Do you have a complete set of House Beautiful magazines from the 1990s? How about the turmeric that you bought for a curry recipe you never got around to making a few years ago? 

The first step in getting ready to sell your home, or even just to organize it for you to live more comfortably yourself, is to pack up and toss some of the items that have outlived their usefulness.

This list is a great starting place to identify items that are eating up valuable real estate in your closets, kitchen cabinets, garage, attic, and basement. The amount of space you can find by just tossing out excess bags and boxes can be so rewarding. 

20 Items To Toss Now

1. Twist ties

2. Supermarket plastic bags

3. Old magazines

4. Bags of socks that don't match

5. Books of matches

6. Take out plastic containers and mismatched other Tupperware

7. Bags, bags, and more bags 

8. Old trophies 

9. Expired medications, sunscreen, and makeup

10. Old expired spices 

11. Outdated college books 

12. Old paint cans (by the way if the paint is dried up, the paint can go in your trash —  if not dried up, open lid, add cat litter and then toss when dried up)

13. The drawer full of Bed Bath & Beyond (or other expired) coupons

14. Duplicate or fuzzy photos

15. Bank statements and utility bills that you will never need to refer to

16. That yellowed pile of recipes that has been growing but you never look at

17. Everything that has been sitting in the “to-be-fixed” pile: the broken mug, the costume jewelry with the broken clasp, the sunglasses with the missing arm

18. Pens that dried up

19. All the cheap, branded stuff you picked up along the way but won’t really use, particularly because you have better versions of it, like tape measures, frisbees, sewing kits, magnifying glasses

20. Craft projects that you started but will never resume — the half-hooked rugs, pieces of tile for the mosaic project, assorted colored sand — you get the idea!

Why wait until you are ready to move to reclaim all this space? Do it now: pack up all these items and don’t look back when you dispose of them.

It’s hard getting rid of sentimental items and articles of clothing. But some stuff in our closets holds no sentimental value at all. Even still, sometimes it is hard to recognize items that should be trashed. Give me a call if you want some professional help.

Remember the episodes of Oprah where she shared her “favorite things”? This is my version of that show, the only difference is that you are not going home with a car! 

These are some of the items that I find myself buying again and again to help my clients stay more organized in their homes.

Adjustable Drawer Organizer

First up is a bamboo drawer organizer. Isn’t it annoying trying to dig through your kitchen drawers to find the pasta-portion utensil, or the ice cream scooper? With this attractive drawer organizer, all of your favorite utensils and silverware can be sorted and easy to locate. The best part is that it is adjustable to account for all your odd-sized items.

My tip is before you just pile items from your current drawer into this organizer, go through them. Do you really need three carrot peelers? (Answer: you don’t!) Depending on the condition, either toss or donate duplicates. Look at your wooden spoons? Are they splintered or really discolored? Maybe it’s time for a new set. 

Square Pantry Basket

A pantry basket is another great kitchen tool. This one is square, and sits so nicely on the shelf. Use it for onions, potatoes, packages of soup and dip mix, your oven mitts, reusable water bottles — the possibilities are endless. As space permits, I like to use them side-by-side. The open-wire design gives your pantry a polished, uniform look and reduces clutter. 

You can also use this basket in the bathroom to organize hand towels, soaps, and lotions, and in your closet for scarves, socks, and more. Wouldn’t it look pretty on a closet shelf holding all your flip flops and sandals.

Metal Hooks

One of my secret weapons for organization are Command metal hooks. They come in many sizes and finishes to match your decor. Use them for bathrobes, baseball hats, towels, oven mitts, dish towels, purses, whatever! The jumbo hooks can hold up to 7.5 lbs.

Pro tips: After installing, press on them for 30 seconds. Wait one hour before you hang anything on the hooks. If your walls are freshly painted, wait a week or so before hanging hooks.

Pot, Pan, and Lid Organizer

Organize your kitchen cabinets or drawers with this nifty pan and lid stacker. You will save a ton of space, and reduce your kitchen noise pollution as you rummage through your cabinets looking for the right pan. Plus, you will protect your non-stick pans as you alleviate the risk of having your pans scratched by storing another metal pan inside it. You can also store your lids this way so you can grab the corresponding cover easily. You can store your pans and lids either horizontally or vertically.

Slim Velvet Hangers

If Marie Kondo were to walk into your closet, she would be impressed to see that you have hung your clothing on these versatile slim velvet hangers. Use in your bedroom for your shirts and pants, and use in the hall closet for coats and jackets. They are great for heavier items, and make your closet look professionally organized! The textured velvet coating grabs onto your clothing so items won’t fall to the floor of your closet. The smooth edges keep your clothing from becoming misshapen. 

Shoe Storage Rack

This shoe rack is my favorite. I use it again and again in my clients’ closets. We all have accumulated so many pairs of shoes, and this rack allows you to store them vertically. The best part is that they are stackable — in case you have LOTS of shoes. Each rack holds up to nine pairs of shoes on the rack, and you can store three pairs of low-profile shoes underneath. The sturdy, durable iron frame supports up to 30 lbs. on each shelf. 

Garage Storage Shelves

If you are thinking about spring cleaning, the garage is a great place to get started. These adjustable storage shelves hold up to 2,500 lbs. per shelf. That’s plenty of room to store your power tools, garden equipment, holiday decorations, even leftover brick and tile. 

Let me know if you have a favorite tool for organizing — I’d love to hear what you use.

Books are memories. Who we are. Who we were. Who we wanted to be. Who we became.

If you visit someone with a well-stocked library, you can “read” their book shelves like you are reading their biography. There are the books on pregnancy; on parenting; on study skills; on choosing a college. A section on travel. The hobby sections — gardening, photography, learning a new language. Shelves and shelves of books that were read by book clubs.

It’s possible to cobble together the stages of someone’s life by looking through the books in their home library. 

Often one of the hardest tasks of my business is helping people edit their massive book collections, most which have taken decades to accumulate. Usually, there are books lurking in places beyond the main collection — books on nightstands, books used decoratively, books on the shelves of the bedrooms, books in the office. Even boxes of once-loved books in the attic that were stored away for the next generation.

The reality is, that when we are thinking about downsizing, saving, moving, and storing books for our children and grandchildren is not the smartest use of valuable shelf real estate. And if you have stored away a book, you are probably not going to read it again yourself. 

More and more books are now read on a kindle-type device, or even on a phone. Penguin Random House reports that 20 percent of Americans have read an ebook, and 60 percent of those ebook readers are under 45. So if you want to share your love for Anne of Green Gables or Little Women with your granddaughter, she will likely want to read it electronically.

Downsizing Your Book Collection

So, how do you pare down that collection to get ready for your move?

The straightforward answer is to keep only your absolute favorites and donate the ones that don't serve you any longer for someone else to enjoy. 

• Start by taking all of the books in your home and putting them in one central place. 

• Just like with your clothing and treasured keepsakes, create piles — keep, donate/give away, and toss. Use a sharp paring knife! 

• When downsizing, paperbacks really should not make the cut. 

• Neither should books that may have been stored in a basement and might be mildewed or damaged. 

• Any books that might have actual value — like first editions — that you aren't sentimentally attached to can be taken to a book dealer or auctioned off on eBay.

• Cookbooks are a whole topic in itself. If you use them, great, but if you find yourself looking online more and more for recipes, donate these as well. 

• College textbooks belong in the same category. They are most likely outdated, and more and more courses use online textbooks. Put these in the donation pile.

If you're anything like me, you will probably uncover a large number of books that you never got around to reading. Do you really think you will? If not, put them in the donate or giveaway pile. 

Contact me for some help with minimizing your book collection. I can make it less of a daunting task.