Keeping Kosher...

Last week we had the privilege of packing, unpacking and organizing a new home for a Berkeley Rabbi and his family.  Our challenge was keeping their kitchen kosher - the separation of dairy cookery from meat.  I met with them in their new kitchen the week before the move and we laid out plans for where things would go.

Fortunately, their new kitchen has lots of cupboards and drawers.  This cupboard is divided by Passover dishes on the left and everyday dishes on the right, and then each shelf contains either dairy or meat dishes. We made cardboard dividers to keep the dishes separated on each shelf.

Not only do the dishes have to be separated, but so do all cooking implements and utensils, so there are double sets of pots and pans, flatware, appliances and mixing bowls. 

As the move took place on a Friday, we had to finish the unpacking before sunset.  Our client checks her emails before getting ready for Shabbat.  

   

Spring flowers...

As you know, I have 2 cats.  One of them thinks it's her job to take any real flower arrangement I bring into the house apart.  She stays up all night ripping the petals out and pulling leaves off the stems until she finally knocks the whole thing over and leaves me to clean up the mess at 4am.

 But I don't let that stop me from enjoying beautiful flower arrangements, and this is why I have only silk/fake flowers and plants in my house. I've collected fabulous fakes for quite a while and can put together dozens of different seasonal arrangements.

I've created some easy rules for making your fakes look interesting and fairly real:

1.  Treat fakes like real flowers.  They have to be animated to look interesting, so bend the stems and the leaves, crush the perfect looking flower heads and pull out a petal or two.  Do what real flowers and branches do.

2.  Build your arrangement the same way you would real flowers.  Use the rule of 3/5/7 to mix different kinds of flowers together.

3.  Use the same seasonal flowers you would if you were buying flowers.  Lilacs are usually only available in April, so I wouldn't put them in a December arrangement.

4.  If your vase is clear, use glass pebbles or real stones to cover the plastic stems in the bottom of the vase.

5.  Keep your flowers fresh by storing them in plastic containers large enough to keep from crushing them too much.

Most of my flower/plant collection come from Pottery Barn.  I usually wait until they go on sale seasonally.

Can EVERYONE be organized?

Recently one of my ATH facebook followers posed this question:  "Can everyone be organized?  My husband seems like a lost cause to me..."

I've been pondering that question, because I use to think that everyone could be organized.  After 20 years as a professional organizer, I now understand that while every space can be organized and made more efficient, and certainly everyone can benefit by having a a more organized space, not everyone responds to getting organized.

There can be many reasons for this...some people are inordinately resistant to change, some people have abundance issues and must be surrounded by a mountain of stuff, some people have serious disorders such as hoarding.  Some people already consider themselves organized - it just doesn't look that way to someone else.  Author David Allen has said "Everyone is already organized to the degree they need to be, to have the world match up to their internal standards. And usually “having to get organized” refers only to things they don’t care that much about. In other words, oil painters have their brushes organized, fishermen their tackle boxes, golfers their clubs."

Recognizing that not everyone's personal definition of being organized is the same, is a level of maturity that the veteran professional organizer brings to the table. There's no amount of trying to convince someone that they need to get organized if they don't think so!

Take this test:  which of these spaces looks organized to you?

A

B

If you choose A, don't call me, I can't help you!

Putting round pegs in square holes...

Last week I was organizing a chef's newly renovated kitchen.  We spent a lot of time trying to find the most efficient way to store all her foods and cooking utensils, especially the mountains of bulk food products for baking.

Her bulk food containers are all restaurant sized and round.  It was painfully obvious that all the new storage shelving that had been added to this kitchen would be eaten up by a few large round containers.  So, she's off to shop for new square containers.

My rule for containers is:  always choose square or rectangular for dry goods and round for wet or sticky foods.  You can get a lot more on a shelf if your containers are square and stackable.

Clean for a day...

The Great Spring Cleaning of 2011 is DONE.  This event was as much about taking stock of what I have as it was about cleaning.  When you clean EVERYTHING you own, you come to realize how much you have.  I never want to have more than I can keep clean in a reasonable time.

I admit that the majority of time was spent getting up and down on a ladder to wash the walls and to touch up the paint.

I am pleased to report that not a drop of paint was spilled and no cats were harmed in this process.

Besides repairing the bathroom paint, this little surprise happened in the kitchen.  I pulled at a "bubble" on the wall and discovered that the original paint had never actually adhered to it, and it literally peeled off the wall.  I finally stopped pulling and covered the patch with spackling before repainting.

The drapes are at the cleaners and the carpet is scheduled for next week...

Here's the work that piled up during my "vacation"...good to know clients are ready to have me tear their homes apart! 

One thing leads to another...

It started with a leak from the upstairs neighbor's bathroom into mine...

I pondered having to fix this for a couple of weeks. Then when an opening in my calendar appeared, I decided the only way to handle this was to tear the entire condo apart, clean every inch of it and repair the damage from the leak.

Day 1 - the bedroom and closet - everything comes out, gets evaluated, cleaned and put back.

Time to pare down this old sewing kit...it's been years since I've picked up a needle and thread, so most of it can go away.

Here's part of the give aways from this go around...

Day 2 - the living room, everything comes off the walls and they get washed...everything gets taken out of the bookcase and cleaned before being put back.

Day 3 - the office comes apart, gets cleaned and then put back.

Day 4 - the bathroom gets the same treatment, including scraping off the damaged paint and prepping the surface for painting tomorrow.

After 10 years in this unit, the grime builds up and I am not in the mood for a complete repaint, so washing the walls will buy me some time.  Only regret, can not wash the ceiling - too much work (no!). 

A little obsessive/compulsive?  Who me...

Change your space, change your life...

I am a true believer in shaking things up in my home to change the energy in my life.  I have been know to rearrange the furniture in the middle of the night when the urge strikes.

I especially believe that my business shifts every time I rework my office...

A couple of years ago, I thought I wanted to calm things down with a very neutral palette. Boring...

Then I spiced things up by adding a bold red...brought in a lot of clients who wanted work done in a hurry...

Too much red, led to adding a nice money green...brought an increase in work, but still felt like I was missing something...

Got rid of red entirely and added orange...and some art, nice improvement, brought in artistic clients...

Now I'm celebrating my international side...bringing in more moves, merci beaucoup!