11 Unbelievable Spring Cleaning Transformations
Even professional lifestyle bloggers have an organizing Achilles heel. That is, until they accepted our organizing challenge. Here, 11 Hometalk members worked with our go-to pro organizers to whip their messiest spaces into shape.
Before making over her garage, Eliesa Prettelt of Pinterest Addict knew the space was a borderline safety hazard. "It was literally the dumping ground for all the things we didn't want to deal with," she says. Prettelt desperately needed help fixing what she now calls "a hoarder situation."
To streamline a space like this, Jeni Aron recommends to purge — and quickly. "Don't waste time giving things away to friends unless the item has value," Aron warns. "Nobody wants your old dirty stuff." Then she says to categorize the remaining items. For Prettelt's garage, she installed a pegboard to create storage for tools, paint, and more.
Megan Chamberlin of C'mon, Get Crafty made over her laundry room and closet two years ago when she first moved into her house, but it failed to keep up with her family. "It got to the point where we were just tossing things around, rather than bothering to put anything away," she says.
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Amelia Meena's straightforward advice: "Add shoe shelves." Chamberlin took it a step further by choosing storage that doubles as a bench. Meena also recommends adding several smaller bins instead of only one big one.
Even though Paula Biggs of Frog Prince Paperie loves to craft, she admits to being extremely disorganized. "After finishing a party, shoot, or any other project, I have a habit of 'cleaning up' by dumping everything in a box and hauling everything up to my office to deal with later," she says. The result? A chaotic work space.
Meena told Biggs to purge and "reconstruct" the space by designating a home for every thing. Then, she says, "You have to return the items to their home when not in use to avoid losing them or, even worse, unnecessarily buying multiples."
Since taking up blogging, Emily Burmeister of Our House Now a Home started using bedroom for crafting. But this dual function space was becoming an eye sore. "My poor husband was lucky to get a corner of the bed at the and of the day," she says.
Maeve Richmond's advice for Burmeister: Mentally and physically divide the space. "This mental shift means you can no longer use your bed as a workspace," she says. She also recommends adding concealed storage to a bedroom/workspace hybrid and painting the walls a light color to make it feel open and bright.
Before Brooke Riley from Re-Fabbed made over her pantry, she couldn't walk in it — let alone find anything. "For months, I watched this tiny room become an anxiety attack waiting to happen, but instead of tackling it, I just kept shutting the door," she says.
Richmond immediately knew what was wrong with this area: "The room was serving as a catch--all for a wide- variety of items, kind of like a garage, and it was too much for this tiny space," she says. To tackle this, set a clear intention for the space, then organize similar items together on dedicated shelves.
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When Ashley Griffith of Hello Nature first moved into her home, she loved the bathroom cabinet. "The shelves were deep, the drawers were wide, and I was certain it would be the perfect solution for all of our stuff," she says. But over time she realized too much storage can create chaos.
To make deep shelves work better, Richmond recommends getting smart with storage. "A combination of pull-out drawers and trays are the perfect way to work with a depth issue," Richmond says. She also suggests installing wireless touch lights, so you can actually see what's hidden near the back of the closet.
Karen Cooper of Dogs Don't Eat Pizza always struggled with her home office, despite experimenting with different furniture layouts. "It was a mess from the day we moved in," she says.
Aron knew Cooper suggested following a few easy steps: Remove things that don't belong in an office (read: tools), add closed storage, and go digital. "Scan as much of your paperwork as possible to eliminate paper bulk on and around your desk," Aron says.
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Even though Victoria Hannley of Dazzle While Frazzled considers herself a relatively organized person, her master bedroom closet says otherwise. "Every home needs a dumping zone, right?!" she asks.
Aron suggests replacing bulky white hangers with slim, neutral ones and giving mismatched baskets and boxes a makeover with custom fabric liners and wrapping paper. "Matching baskets will calm the eye when you walk into your closet," Aron says.
Cat Golden of Pocketful of Posies knew exactly what was wrong with her pantry: It was over flowing with food and cluttered with things that shouldn't be in the space whatsoever, but she didn't know where to cut back. "There never seemed to be enough room," she says.
To streamline a space like this, Aron recommends using the back of the door to add bonus storage and creating zones with labels (like "baking") to keep food organized by need. But she warns that it's a lifestyle change as well as a physical one: "Be faithful to these zones and school everyone in the house about what goes where," Aron says.
Pam Farley of Brown Thumb Mama and her husband own three businesses and share a desk — which is why their desktop started to look more like a junk drawer. But she knew it had potential: "Since it's a corner desk, there was lots of unused space behind the monitor," she says.
Richmond recommends completely clearing your desk off, then adding baskets, paper organizers, and color-coded folders to eliminate piles. For shared office spaces, Richmond also suggests designated work areas. "Claim a territory, and put paperwork and office supplies back using systems that make sense for you," she says.
When Krystal Kristiansen of Minty Green Dream first moved into her home, she thought all the space in her master closet was amazing — but it quickly became a room without a clear purpose: "It's where we put anything that made us think, 'hmm, maybe someday I'll need one of these,'" she says.
Meena recommends tackling all the random stuff that doesn't belong first. "Purge any items that aren't useful, current, purposeful, or inspirational," she says. From there, a fresh coat of blue paint and savvy shelves results in a functional and pretty closet.
11 Unbelievable Spring Cleaning Transformations
Even professional lifestyle bloggers have an organizing Achilles heel. That is, until they accepted our organizing challenge. Here, 11 Hometalk members worked with our go-to pro organizers to whip their messiest spaces into shape.
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