Getting your house in order
Organization helps you get what you want in the space you have to live in
We’ve all been there. The moment you look around your home and feel an overwhelming desire to get it in order but don’t know where to start.
“The No. 1 thing I recommend clients do is a huge purge,” says interior designer Angela Robinson.
“Just really be ruthless and get rid of things and donate things and give things away that you haven’t used in a year.”
This includes dishes, linens, clothing and your kids’ felt-tip markers that no longer work, says Robinson, along with anything that is taking up space.
“We pay for every square footage of our homes, whether we rent or are paying a mortgage. It’s costing us every month to be storing this stuff,” she says.
When the request from her clients is better organization Robinson starts by asking about their lifestyles and priorities and identifies the things that they use all the time, making them accessible, with the rest hidden from main living spaces.
“Having clutter and disorganization floods over to other areas in your life and just creates a bit of chaos and stress,” says Robinson.
“I find that people feel calmer and more like their life’s together when their stuff is organized.”
Clear storage boxes are great, she says, as they’re stackable, you can label them and see what’s inside — unlike baskets that people often put things into, things that then disappear into “never-never land.”
Robinson says she often works with young families and kids come home with a lot of stuff, such as class photos, art work and the like.
Her solution is finding spaces in your home for this clutter, such as lining the pantry doors with cork board so you can pin things up, but when the doors are closed your home will have more clean, simple lines throughout. For great organizational ideas Robinson recommends Ikea, along with website Pinterest for DIY systems and space-saving solutions, which are more relevant than ever in Vancouver.
“If you have the budget to hire an interior designer to design custom millwork that fits your organizational needs and your lifestyle needs, then that’s an ideal solution, but realistically most people don’t have the budget to hire an interior designer, it’s a luxury service,” says Robinson. “I would hire an organizational professional before I hired an interior designer.”
Rosario Ruiz y Laza has worked as a professional organizer and personal assistant for private residences in Vancouver for the last 13 years. Coming from Spain, Ruiz y Laza has a European proclivity for sparse rooms, opting for less furniture and more art on the walls. “People call me when they’re at a loss of what the next step is,” she says.
“I can usually find five, six or seven things right away that need to be tweaked or moved.”
Moving through each room of the house, Ruiz y Laza says she asks her clients to pick two or three items they can’t live without and then let go of the rest — either pass it on, donate it or sell it.
“I don’t tend to like the (storage) locker idea,” Ruiz y Laza says. “Because what happens is this stuff just generally collects dust in a space that you’re paying a lot of money for and it becomes an anchor.”
Ruiz y Laza is sensitive to people’s attachment to things, but says people have to be honest about the amount of space they have and what look and feel they want to achieve in their homes.
“Children are fabulous to work with,” she says. “They’re more open to the suggestion of change and will very quickly go ‘I don’t want it anymore.’ ”
Vancouver’s Room In Order specializes in organizational products for your home that have a design element. With two locations (Cambie at West 8th and Davie at Thurlow) owner Shaniff Thawer says he chooses products that are utilitarian, but modern with clean contemporary lines.
“You can come into the stores and find products for every room in the home,” he says. “From bathroom to kitchen to office. People generally shop by room.”
In keeping with the city’s current focus on composting Thawer offers good-looking recycling receptacles and says anything that is space-saving orientated sells well in Vancouver, such as their Lucano ladders from Japan (in a one-step, twostep and three-step model).
“They’re beautifully designed and very well made so if they’re closed they stand, if they’re open they stand, and you can leave them out; it’s one of those pieces you’re not going to be bothered by.”
You can come into the stores andf ind products for every room in the home.
SHANIFF THAWER
OWNER, ROOM IN ORDER