Our Favorite Organizing Projects of 2022
Can you believe another year has come and gone? We sure can’t! As we start to map out our New Year’s resolutions and goals for 2023 at TLD, we can’t help but reflect on our favorite projects from 2022. After all, we wouldn’t be here without all of you!
This year consisted of lots of what we do best: general home organizing, custom closet designs and installs, assisting with moves and small business organizing. Keep scrolling to read about some of our highlights.
General Home Organizing
We’ll start by breaking down this general home organizing project for you. This client was referred to us by a friend of hers (we love client referrals!) and we had such a great time getting into every nook and cranny of this house. As we’ve said a million times, organizing is a domino effect. You’ll start in one area and inevitably end up in many if not all areas of your home assessing and finessing your systems.
Some of the major spaces we organized for this growing family of 5 included the kitchen, basement, third floor office space and kid’s closets. As with any organizing project, we used the SPACE acronym to get through each area. If you’re new here, SPACE was created by organizing guru, Julie Morgenstern. It stands for Sort, Purge, Assign, Contain, Equalize.
Similarly to how we work with many clients, we initially worked independently to sort the contents of this client’s home and then had her come purge what she no longer wanted. Never underestimate the power of a good purge!
Once all spaces had been sorted and purged, we focused a lot of our time on product, figuring out not only how to best contain everything, but what made sense depending on the space and contents.
There’s nothing more satisfying than being able to organize a house from start to finish. This was just one of the many we were able to do this year!
We used this cart to organize Magna-Tiles. However, it can be used in SO many different areas of the house and comes in many different colors.
For the mudroom we incorporated water hyacinth bins on top shelves and free-standing Elfa units below to contain all in-season apparel. Each bin is properly labeled so items return to where they came from.
Our favorite room to organize was the playroom where we incorporated so many different systems including slim shelves for books. It’s a great option if you’re looking to have a few books displayed on rotation.
Previously a blank wall, we added Elfa for arts and crafts supplies and shelves to hold games and craft projects.
One of our favorite visual organizers in the playroom included this stuffed animal hammock corner for fury friends to reside. It allows your child to see all the stuffed animals and clearly gives a place for them to live!
ELFA install
As you probably already know, creating custom closets is our specialty. Our process to do this always remains the same:
1. Have an in-person consultation where we discuss the possibilities, wants and desires, and then take measurements of the spaces you’re looking to have designed.
2. Set up an organizing session to purge belongings and create a detailed inventory of what is being contained in the space.
3. Create our designs and set up an installation day to get them all up and running.
4. Before install happens, we make sure all spaces are prepped by emptying all spaces, laying out all inventory, removing any previous closet systems and patching and painting the walls.
5. Install day! All the closet systems are installed and your belongings are organized into the new systems.
This project was super fun for us and made even better since it was a client we had worked with in the past. We assisted with her move from her previous space into her new one and took all measurements while the house was fully under construction. One of the best parts of this project was getting to see the home from the beginning phases of construction to when it was freshly painted and ready for us.
Like many other Elfa days, we installed 7 spaces in one day. Although these days can be super exhausting, they’re also the most fun when our whole team is able to work together to divide and conquer (we love the power of a big team!). Not only did we install Elfa into this space, we also installed one of our favorite Pottery Barn systems in their mudroom to hold all their outerwear accessories. Check out some of the before and after pics!
Move Management
Like any other year, this summer was a major MOVE SEASON! As client’s get ready to make a move (big or small) it’s always a great idea to hire us as early as possible to help with the entire move process. This house was no exception. We were able to get this client purged, packed, moved and unpacked into the new house within a few weeks.
We always encourage clients to purge as much as possible before a move so they’re not paying to have contents packed and moved to the house as well as wasting time unpacking it on the other end. These clients were moving temporarily into a rental house for the next year or so, so some stuff was marked to go into storage. Typically when a storage unit is involved, we like to keep a detailed inventory of everything moving out of the house so it’s clear where it’s going to end up as well as where the client can find it after they move. This was no exception!
Once the clients were purged, packed, and inventoried, we met them on the other end to get them completely unpacked into their new (temporary) house. There’s nothing like getting a client and their family settled into a new home. While this can be extremely overwhelming for anyone, we were able to take all the stress away by unpacking and setting up systems that worked to get them settled as quickly as possible.
A massive crane was used to hoist this piece of furniture up to the third floor. Never a dull moment!
Never underestimate how many boxes and packing materials you’ll need. It’s always best to overbuy and return later rather than get stuck needing to make multiple runs to get more!
All moved in, organized and ready to go!
Small Business Organizing
Digital organizing is definitely the aspect of this work that we get the most questions about. While it is easy to imagine what it looks like to organize physical items, it can be difficult to conceptualize the construction of digital infrastructure. We faced a major challenge in both physical and digital organizing in our next favorite project of the year.
Our client runs a small business that has been keeping all their records on paper since they were founded – in the early 2000's. We were tasked with creating a digital filing system that would be robust enough to follow industry compliance, to take on a huge volume of data from all their paper files, and work well for the whole team. When we arrived, the office was full to the brim with dozens of banker’s boxes full of client files, and without any consistent filing system for long term storage. Quite the doozy!
We are still in progress, sorting through decades of client files, emails, documents, and data. Our organizers have become well acquainted with the business and the team to cater the process and systems to meet their exact needs. When we complete this project, the team will be fully digital, much more secure, and prepared to hire additional staff and grow the business. We will also offer support in maintaining these systems in the long term and developing new strategies if the needs of the staff and clientele change.
2022 was such a great year for us and we’re so grateful for all our clients and community! We look forward to tackling so many more projects next year. What’s something that you want to get organized? DM us on Instagram @TLDBoston