This week we had the privilege of meeting with Lauren, owner of Organized at Last, to discuss all things home organization. Lauren grew up in Whatcom County, WA, then married and started her family while living in a 700 square foot cabin in Alaska. Living as a family of four in this small space challenged her to think creatively to make the most out of the space. We learned a lot while chatting with her as she went over how to get started organizing when you’re feeling overwhelmed, packing tips, and easy tips to create a home office. Organized at Last is a professional home organization company based in Bellingham, Washington. They specialize in helping you reduce clutter, simplify and minimize, and improve function by bringing life-changing order and organization to your home and/or office. Lauren and her team listen to your needs and find creative solutions without pressure or judgement. Real estate staging, helping you with moving and unpacking, and interior design and decorating services are also available. We wanted to hear more, and knew you would too, so we sat down with Lauren to discuss. We posted the full video on our Facebook and Instagram pages but summarized it here in writing as well. Q & A with Lauren:Question (Jerry): Tell us a little bit about what you do. Answer (Lauren): We do all kinds of organizing. Home organizing, office spaces, garage, anything to do with the home. We also do commercial office spaces, staging for real estate, interior design and decorating. Sometimes it all comes in together; sometimes I’ll do everything for one client. If somebody is moving we can pack them, leave the stuff they need for staging, then help get their house sold in that way, unpack them at the new house, set up...we’ve done that. The whole nine yards. Q: Now when you’re moving, everyone just seems to have so much stuff. I’ve been here 25 years. I’m overwhelmed; where do I start? A: With the moving I would say you start and you don’t hesitate. Just start collecting boxes, start collecting wrapping, and just room by room go through. Get the pictures off of the wall. Anything that you’re not going to need to live with. I would say start with a room so that way you don’t have to think about the whole house as one big project. Really just think of it as room by room if it really is starting to feel like that that big, huge, overwhelming project. And then when we pack for people what we really like to do is rather than when we pack a box writing a big paragraph of everything that’s on the box, if this is Box #1, we write 1. And say you’re packing your bathroom, write bathroom. So that all that’s written on the box is #1 bathroom. And then you have a sheet of paper and on that paper you have #1 bathroom and you write down everything that’s in that box. And then you have Box #2 and you have your paper so that when you go to your new home and ideally have moved all of the boxes that say bathroom #1 and bathroom #2 into the bathrooms that they need to be in...if you’re looking for one specific item, rather then looking through every box and trying to read every little paragraph you’re just looking at your sheet of paper and can see okay, that’s in #3. I just need to find #3. I think that’s a big thing when people move is that they can’t find any of their stuff anymore, it’s all misplaced. So starting early, trying to do it as methodical as possible and realize you’re doing yourself a huge favor by starting out that way, not just throwing everything in. Sometimes you want to do that. You want to just throw everything into a box and just get it done because it’s so much work. But really, then what you’re doing is creating even more of a headache for yourself on the unpacking side. Q & A continued below... Q and A continued... Q: A lot of people are working remotely from home now. How do I organize my office at home so I don’t have all of the distractions that normally take part in a common home. A: Most of us don’t have these homes with a whole extra room that we can take everything out of and now make it our home office. If you have that it’s great that you have that space and you have it set up but a lot of people don’t have that extra space to make an office...so I would say buy a room divider. A bifold, a trifold, you can get them at Target, they’re usually relatively cheap, and just putting up that wall helps. If you’re going to be in the living room, take a corner of your living room and put up that wall so you’re not looking at your kitchen, you’re not looking at your dishes, or thinking about your laundry or anything else. I think it really helps focus on the job at hand just to put up those blinders. Thank you Lauren for sharing your tips and giving us a glimpse inside the life of a Professional Organizer! To follow along or contact Organized at Last:This post was written in partnership with The Jerry Blankers Team and is published at www.jerryblankers.com/blog. All opinions are my own. If you are in need of a realtor in Whatcom County, WA, we used them for our most recent land purchase and home sale and I highly recommend them! You can give them a call at 360-410-1297 or email jerry@jerryblankers.com or Kassi@muljatgroupnorth.com. Instagram: @blankersrealestate
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When areas of your home are cluttered, messy and unorganized it takes longer to find items and to put them back. It can get frustrating and downright annoying having to go back and forth wondering where something went or if you even have it anymore. I’ve noticed that as I organize and de-clutter certain parts of my home, as silly as it sounds, it really helps with my mood and my efficiency in performing household tasks. If you know exactly where your cleaning supplies are, you can access them more quickly and efficiently. It also makes it easy to quickly know if you are running low on something or if it’s gone, etc instead of wondering if you just left it in a different spot this time. If you know where your extra pillowcases are, same thing. Today I’m focusing on one of my favorite areas to organize: the kitchen pantry. If you don’t have a designated pantry in your home, I highly recommend choosing an area (certain cupboards, a small closet near the kitchen, possibly add open shelving, etc) to function as one. Having pantry staples located close together is incredibly helpful when it comes to cooking, baking, and even planning a grocery list. Step 1: PURGEThe first thing you’ll want to do is pull everything out of your pantry (or designated pantry area) and PURGE. Toss anything expired, put all of those random loose chip clips together, and reevaluate if any items that have sat and sat unused (but not expired) will get used by you soon or if you should consider donating them to a local food bank. Step 2: CLEANWipe down all surfaces so that you will be starting fresh. Use disinfectant if/when necessary otherwise a damp washcloth will usually do the trick. Be sure to allow ample time to dry before you refill the area (step 4). Step 3: STRATEGIZEDoes the way you had your pantry set up previously suit your needs well? Does it make sense to have the highly used salt on a shelf up high and the rarely used baking soda in arms reach? The strategy will differ for every household but take a few minutes to see what makes the most sense for you. Maybe you want to leave it how it was since you have gotten so used to that system but if it doesn’t function easily I highly recommend changing the layout. Step 4: ORGANIZE & FILLNow that you’ve purged, cleaned, and strategized, it’s time to refill the pantry! I purchased these food storage containers last year and they have made such a difference for us; I love the sleek design. Using food storage containers makes keeping your pantry neat and tidy so much easier because you are dealing with stackable, uniform pieces instead of food bags and boxes of varying sizes. They are dishwasher safe and I have also noticed our food stays fresh much longer with the push-button airtight seal. Step 5: LABELIf you want to take your pantry organization to the next level, label! You can label anything from spice jars to baking essentials and more. I purchased this spice jar set with labels from Amazon and it has made such a difference for us! It’s so easy to quickly see the spice I need and the labels do not come attached to the spice jar so you are able to decide which ones you need or don’t need and if you’d like the label on the side of the jar or on top of the lid, or both, dependent on what makes sense based on how you display your spices. There you have it! 5 easy steps to an organized pantry that will save you time and make cooking, baking, and grocery planning much easier! When you can easily see what you have you don’t accidentally overbuy leaving you to have to toss or overcrowd your pantry. Do you have an organized pantry or will you run and organize it now? I’d love to hear your feedback and tips as to what you have done to make your pantry more efficient. This post was written in partnership with The Jerry Blankers Team and is published at www.jerryblankers.com/blog. All opinions are my own. If you are in need of a realtor in Whatcom County, WA, we used them for our most recent land purchase and home sale and I highly recommend them! You can give them a call at 360-410-1297 or email jerry@jerryblankers.com or Kassi@muljatgroupnorth.com. Instagram: @blankersrealestate 🌟 Other posts you may like:
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