Organizing with Help from Pros

Whether it’s a closet bursting with clothing and shoes, a linen closet stuffed with blankets and pillows, kitchen drawers and cabinets filled with more gadgets and dishes than we need, or inherited items added to our already filled homes and garages, most people have a lot of things. Deciding what to keep and what to ditch, along with getting it all in order, can be overwhelming.

Studies show that clutter can have a negative impact on mental health, causing stress and feelings of frustration, and can lead to depression. Getting a handle on clutter and excess items in the home can provide a sense of calm, peace and an overall better mood.

Northwest Home Coach, a Gig Harbor-based professional organizing business, serves clients in the Puget Sound region to help create that inviting space. Owner Lisa VanDoorne and her team help clients to organize and purge items in a variety of situations. Clients may need to downsize in order to move to a smaller home or an assisted living space, while others just need help sorting an overwhelming amount of stuff.

VanDoorne, who has a master’s degree in organizational leadership from Concordia University in Ervine, California, is a member of the National Association of Organizing Professionals. She and her team of trained organizers have helped clients to sort, declutter and donate items from inherited estates as well as items in their homes, storage facilities, offices and even classrooms. VanDoorne said that they also help pack and unpack during a move and can also help design a space that is easier to use. She believes that an organized space saves time, and she works with clients to make their home more inviting by using what they already have and love.

She has a background in nonprofit work and a degree in journalism but wanted to do something different when her children were launching into adulthood. VanDoorne started her business in 2019, six months before COVID-19 began. With the restrictions of the pandemic, she couldn’t really work. But the time in lockdown gave her a chance to continue to build her business website and ensure that everything was in place to launch into action as soon as the restrictions were lifted.

Since that time, VanDoorne has acquired a business van, which she uses to move any items a client donates to local charity shops, and has grown her business to include a solid team of four trained organizers.

An array of haphazard, unorganized piles can feel unsurmountable. The time to call in an organizing professional is the moment someone feels overwhelmed, when it’s hard to make a decision and have perspective, VanDoorne said. And while a lot of people can do the work of organizing their home on their own, she said there are all manner of reasons why someone may not be able to pull it off for themselves.

“We truly say that we’ve seen worse because we have,” she said. “We’ve seen it all.”

Sorting through someone else’s personal items sometimes uncovers things that could lead to embarrassment, she said, but the team at Northwest Home Coach keeps those things in confidence.

“This is very personal work,” VanDoorne said. “It becomes very tender, what we encounter and uncover, so we have to develop trust, and I hire my team based on their level of integrity. I can put any of them anywhere, and they do great. We approach each job with nonjudgement. When we uncover something not meant for our eyes, we just keep working.”

Grief, in any form, is one of many reasons that someone may not be able to tackle the job on their own, whether it’s the death of a loved one or any major life change. Physical limitations or geographic distance of an heir who must sort through an estate and a number of other factors can lead someone to have an abundance of things to manage and make decisions for what to do with it all.

VanDoorne and her team begin with sorting, she said. They make piles of like things, such as all sheets and sheet sets together, comforters and bedding. She has developed a decision-making matrix to help clients decide what to do with their items.

The first pile is “keep.” If it’s something that the client loves, they should keep it, she said. If it’s an item that they don’t love, it requires a discussion, as does the item that is loved but not used. And if an item isn’t loved and is not used, she advises to let it go.

Whatever is loved and being kept has to have a place where it fits and is kept in order. VanDoorne helps her clients maintain the organization by shopping for storage baskets, trays and other containers at local home stores, which she then uses for keeping things in order.

Once a client has a pile of things that they no longer want, VanDoorne and her team work with Buy Nothing groups, or she donates to places that accept the goods, but she doesn’t resell any of it.

Though the company doesn’t do staging for the sale of a home, VanDoorne said that she does understand that to sell a home, it is important to present it in a way that is free of clutter and chaos. She can work with what a client already has to make the home look calm and comfortable. This saves time and money.

Organizing Tips

For those who are ready to tackle the clutter on their own, VanDoorne offers seven tips to get started:

1. If your space is small, like a closet or a drawer, empty it out completely. In larger rooms, work through the space in sections and empty out each section.
2. Manage your obvious trash. Remove anything that clearly should go in the garbage and any cardboard.
3. Start sorting out anything that belongs somewhere else or to someone else. Figure out your return strategy.
4. For the items that remain, sort like with like. As you gain an understanding of how much stuff you have, create a “donate” pile of things you no longer need or want.
5. If you need organizing bins or baskets, this is the time to get them. Shop your house first and see what you might already have.
6. Clean your space as you go and label bins and boxes if necessary.
7. Celebrate your organized space!

“If you’re completely overwhelmed and you don’t know where to begin, hire a professional organizer in your area,” she said. “The best place to look for a qualified organizer is NAPO.net. The National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals provides training, connection and a code of ethics for professional organizers.”