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Nicole
Gabai of B. Organized starts the organization
process for Doug Kennedy of North Falmouth.
Its essential that you trust and feel
comfortable with your organizer. |
When It’s
Hard to Discard, It Just Might Be Time to Call in the Professionals
PRIMETIME Cape Cod, April 2006
A publication of the Cape Cod Times
by Amy Dufault
It’s hard to
know when the need to organize actually dawns on you as necessary.
Some credit it to the itch from a spring like day in late winter,
others to tax preparation fall-out and a small few to that sense of
blocked energy, that feng shui disaster festering behind a tidy
painted closet door.
For many, this
need to rearrange is trumped by the time and organization involved
behind such a monstrous task. Imagining oneself wading through
catch-all closets or unopened boxes from moves lining attic walls.
Depending on the size of the project, the feat may seem daunting, so
much so that the job never gets underway and organizing becomes just
another verb that never takes action.
Nicole Gabai,
owner of B.Organized, a Falmouth based home and office organizing
business, says when she meets with a client she breaks the project
down into “zones.”
“Giving
people a language to use so when they are sorting things they can
say it’s a zone and that means it’s the bookshelf or a closet,
makes it easier to handle a project,” says Gabai. A Fashion
Institute of Technology and Parsons graduate, Gabai credits her own
organizing skills to a slough of demanding jobs ranging from set
decorating to commercial production, in the field of television.
Jobs that required mastering the skills of arranging, coordinating
and planning. From this background she works with clients across the
country that need her creative expertise and solid common sense.
“I think
winter lends itself to being slower so it’s the best time to get
organized before the busier seasons where we want to be more
efficient. Being efficient means being organized,” says Gabai who
is a big fan of The Container Store (www.containerstore.com,
www.containerstore.com)
for storage solutions. The Container Store has a service called
“Plan a Space,” where a planning expert will electronically
design with you a space you’ve been mentally designing for years,
in addition to organizing everything from CD’s to the family
bathroom.
Gabai says one
of the first things you should do when deciding to organize an area
is to sort piles of like things. If it’s a clothing closet you
choose to go through, then think about putting sweaters, t-shirts,
formal dresses and shoes into piles, then go back and look through
them with the help of an unbiased friend, discarding items you
haven’t worn in two years or more. Gabai says this process should
be ruthless, but is a good way to see what you do have and what
might need mending, dry cleaning or possible alterations at a
tailor. After all the clothing is sorted and ready to be packed
away, Gabai says to think about sweater bags, large plastic storage
containers and good hangers to put away what you will and won’t be
using for the months to come.
“It’s
funny but people tend to keep hangers forever and having all those
different hangers are going to make a closet look all cluttered. I
love Huggable Hangers (www.idea-direct.com, www.idea-direct.com)
because they’re thin and sturdy with a fabric, non-slip coating
that won’t make pointy bubbles on the tips of your shirts and your
clothes won’t be falling off the hanger.”
Although there
are countless storage and organizing solutions for your disorganized
spaces, Gabai says a lot is dictated by your budget and lifestyle.
One of the
most important things you need to think about if you are going to go
the route of a professional home organizer is deciding early on if
he or she is compatible with you as the level of trust is immense.
An organizer’s going to see all your warts so meeting with them
and feeling comfortable before you go ahead with a project is very
important.
If any of this
sounds appealing to you, remember these April showers will soon
bring May flowers and lots of outdoor activities, recreation that
will have a dizzying effect on you, undoubtedly taking you away from
tackling indoor projects. Seize the moment to at least bag up old
clothing, get rid of those 10 pairs of “yard shoes,” the more
than ample supply of not so flannelly flannel sheets, and the
expired prescriptions pushed back far in the kitchen cabinet. Taking
one shelf at a time may lead you to explore more, to get rid of more
and to go where no one in your house has gone before….into a state
of being organized.
Go figure.
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