GOT ORGANIZATION: Tips From Graceful Spaces Organizing

With your Signature Home Organizing, what are the first few steps Graceful Spaces takes with clients to help them organize and ensure every item has a purpose and a place? And how do you help establish habits and routines to make the organization sustainable?

After 5 years as professional organizers, we hear one very common theme when people come to us – “I can’t STAY organized”. 90% of our clients are still organized almost a year to 4 years later and it’s because we’re taking a step back – looking at the space and creating goals. Even for spaces such as a laundry room, we’re having a conversation asking “who is using the space?”, “what activities are happening here?” before we ever head out to purchase baskets and bins. By doing this we can ensure we’re setting up proper zones, not overloading a space with too many actives, and putting in systems that are age/activity appropriate.

For clients who are building or remodeling, Graceful Spaces can partner with the trade teams to create custom design plans that prioritize organization. What does that consist of and which spaces would you recommend clients take advantage of this customization?

One of our favorite services! We’re stepping in to lean support from the very beginning. This service was created after seeing beautiful custom closets that unfortunately didn’t account for the correct number of shoes the client had, or even worse – had shelves that were too short for the client’s shoe size! Often beautiful cabinets will not hold a standard size plate. So clients were left struggling to understand how their personal items were going to fit into their new “custom” space. Our team is able to come alongside architects, designers, and contractors to offer the knowledge of WHAT items are going into each space. We gain a deep knowledge of what items the client owns, their hobbies, their collections, etc, and can then weigh-in to ensure there will be proper space to support the family’s goals and lifestyle. And of course, we love to find more space – offering unique ideas to gain more storage.

Gottesman Residential Real Estate specializes in a full-service luxury real estate experience which includes helping clients prepare the home before it’s listed and after it sells. How can Graceful Spaces’s moving services be beneficial to our clients?

There are so many benefits to organizing during the home selling process. The biggest is the return on investment – by organizing your home prior to selling you are communicating to the buyers that your home was well taken care of and that there is plenty of storage in the home. Personal benefits are being able to move with only the things you need and love – no more boxes full of random items! It gives you a fresh reset for your new home. Bonus… as you are preparing for showings the whole family can help prepare because everything has a home and is labeled! 90% of our clients are referrals or they are using us for multiple homes or moves. We love seeing how an investment in organizational products (baskets and bins) can be transferred into a new home with ease. We are usually able to use 95% of the product from the first home and transfer it to the next. This also makes the organizing process in the new home go that much faster!

When a space has limited storage, what are some creative ways to maximize space?

Find vertical space! Pan organizers can turn your serving plates, baking pans, and platters vertical giving you double cabinet space! File folding will always provide more space in drawers than you ever thought possible! Using the inside of cabinet doors for hanging lightweight items provides additional space and makes it easy to grab items. Decanting can also save space and provide an opportunity to stack (again using that empty cabinet space floating up above).

We love all of your simple yet impactful tips on your blog and Instagram! Out of all of Graceful Spaces’s tips, which one would you find the most beneficial?

Put a donate bin in every major space of the home. As you identify items that are no longer needed don’t allow them to stay in your everyday space – go ahead and put them in the easily accessible bin right away. This allows the clutter to be off your mind and out of your space.

Any tips for an organized kid’s room or playroom? And how do you incorporate their vision, in addition to their parents’ requests?

Make it achievable! Color coding and micro categorizing are often not sustainable for kiddos. Chose storage options that create clear categories but take less than 5 minutes to put away. (Think a bin of legos vs multiple bins with different color legos or all small play figurines vs separating LOLs from Hatchimals). Kids do better with less. Helping them to edit out unused items will serve them now as well as in the future! Take a first pass to remove broken or toys that are no longer age-appropriate. After that allow them the opportunity to edit with clear boundaries. Letting them know how many items need to be released or how many items need to be kept can provide the goal. And then celebrate together with a reward! Kids have special attachments and we never want to overlook that! When we are in that goal-setting stage we are able to understand what actives the children love and where the space investment will be. We can also understand if there was a favorite item that is no longer needed but can go into a memory basket.

While aiming to inspire simplicity with systems and solutions that increase the form and function of every room, what are some of Graceful Spaces’s favorite products?

Our go-to products are deep Linus bins and pantry bins, turntables, hyacinth baskets, and drawer organizers. All make it very easy to create clear boundaries for items as well giving a streamlined look to any space.

What are some additional services Graceful Spaces offers that you would recommend to any homeowner?

The Graceful Spaces team specializes in helping clients use their home to its maximum potential. Our home is our biggest investment but often we are not able to use it as well as we could. We want to make sure homes are supporting our clients and that they WANT to come home. This is what drives us to be different than a traditional organizing company – we’re looking at how the whole home functions (vs just focusing on one space). We encourage our clients to invest in at least 5 or more spaces to see the life-changing difference that happens when your home works for you and spaces support one another. In addition to our whole home organizing, we also offer the new build services that give the opportunity to ensure custom projects are built around clients’ personal items and goals. We also offer a new home set up to support clients when they move to a new home. The GS team will purchase and install household items from measuring cups to blenders, washing pods to household cleaners, travel supplies to suitcases.

Do you have any favorite Instagram accounts you recommend we follow?

We are always inspired by @SerenaandLily with their clean and fresh look. @mdesign is a company that makes the Linus bins and other great organizing products that we love! @crateandbarrel has been a great option for really cool baskets and functional decor.