Confessions of a Professional Organizer

by shawnachilders

I’ve had clients say to me “I bet your house is soooo organized!”

For the most part it’s amazing, but to be honest, I come home from a busy day tired, just like a lot of people.  Dinner doesn’t make itself at my house, I have to do that.   Oh, and my house doesn’t magically stay clean, I have to keep it up.

I have children who don’t always do their chores to my standard, and even make messes that they don’t clean up!!  I guess we could become nudists and eliminate all that laundry!! Hmmmm… A nudist lifestyle is not an option, and fairies don’t visit in the night picking up the slack for me either!  Sad but true.  🙁

So sometimes this wife and mama of three boys wishes she had her own professional organizer to come sort things out for her!  A housekeeper would be handy, too. A chauffeur to get my children delivered to and from school…  maybe a ladies maid to pick out my clothes!  Ha, ha!  Okay, okay. Not really, but a housekeeper would be nice! I hope in my sarcasm I didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings, but my point is: I am just like a lot of my clients.

Life gets crazy.  Stuff doesn’t get put back.  There are interruptions.  Unexpected events happen that catch you off guard and before you know what happened, you are living in an environment that you don’t enjoy anymore!

This happened in my kitchen.  My schedule has been pretty packed lately and my kitchen had gotten out of control!

I had avoided it for a while but it needed an intervention!

Here was my breaking point: I went to load dirty dishes into the dishwasher….

But the dishwasher was not completely unloaded…..

And the drying rack…. well…. it couldn’t even bail me out!

The cabinet where most of the items from the dish drainer should have gone looked like this….

Let’s get a closer look at the horror of horrors!!!!  Could I throw anything else in there and close the door before it fell out?

And to give you an idea of what the island looked like…. pretty ridiculous!!!   A picture of neglect!!! Notice the QT coffee, I knew it was coming, aaaand it would require coffee!

Time to get to work.  I took everything out of the cabinets.  Oh, this side, too!  It was all getting an overhaul!

And to understand the severity of the situation, I’ll let you see the counters complete with crock pot and popcorn popper still just hanging out, taking up valuable space!  AAAaaaaah!  I can’t take it anymore!

Once everything was out and sorted it took no time at all to get it back in. I was too involved for picture taking at this point!  A little bit of shuffling around to see what scenario worked best and a basket for all the lunch bags and we were back to a functioning kitchen.  I was so happy to have clean counters and space to work I sat right down to make my menu for the week! And I’ve found myself gravitating toward my kitchen….. now that it’s not a hot mess!  Plus I am in a way better mood when cooking!

Happy, happy, joy, joy!!

And now for the AFTER pictures!!

See?  There really are counters!  It’s a miracle!  Oh and I used a bigger container for the utensils I keep out for handy grabbing during cooking.

 I didn’t get my after pictures taken until a couple DAYS after the actual organize event so I had the live basil I bought for my menu this week.  I think it’s pretty precious.

This is where I added the basket for lunch bags and I put all the containers and thermoses used for packing lunches.

And glass containers for hot lunches on the other side with mixing bowls on the bottom.

Lastly, the crock pot was put away and measuring cups and cooking things found a home.

Aaaaah.   Happy mama!