Find reliable contractors and doctors when you join Angie’s List today –
Use promo code LOCAL to save 15%.

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By Angie Hicks (Founder of Angie’s List)

About this time each year, professional organizer Janet Nusbaum sees an uptick in business. “Folks start to set new goals for the year, and getting organized is always in the top 10,” said Nusbaum. Owner of Simplified Spaces in Carmel. “They have an influx of new stuff that comes in during the holiday. Often, when I get the call, they’re feeling very overwhelmed, and they’re reaching out for some solutions.

The new year represents a fresh start and a chance to purge the old, unnecessary items in your life to free up valuable space and reduce clutter. Organizing a home office, garage or basement can be a family project that you do yourself or one in which you hire a professional like Nusbaum.

“The first step is to define what the purpose is of that space,” Nusbaum said. “If you see conflicting stuff there that doesn’t meet the purpose of that space, it needs to leave, pose of that space, it needs to leave, so all you have in that space are things that meet your vision for what you want to do (there).”

Some other things to consider before beginning a reorganization project:

• Make a list of the tasks you want to accomplish and prioritize by putting the tasks most important to you at the top of the list.
• Start small and allot an hour or two dedicated to one area to avoid becoming overwhelmed.
• Buy to replace, not to add.
• If it doesn’t fit or it’s out of fashion, donate it. If you’re reorganizing your wardrobe closet, hang pants long ways, rather than fold, which takes up twice the space. Use stacking hangers that can hold multiple garments. Organize your closets by color or by type.
• Keep only what is necessary to accommodate your family’s needs. Keep in mind that round containers take up more space than square containers.
• Purchase several large plastic storage bins with lids. Organize items according to their use and label the bins accordingly.

Nusbaum also recommends storing items closest to their point of use. “If your coffee maker is on the kitchen counter, it’s more efficient to store everything relating to making that cup of coffee right together,” she said. It saves you steps.”

Carmel resident and a Simplified Spaces client, Julie Bowen, is a self-proclaimed “neat freak” who has hired Janet to organize her home, garage and basement. Organizers can also help organize bills and other paperwork that often gets lost in the shuffle.

Bowen keeps systems in place so she, her husband and two children know where to find things when they need to put up and where they are when they need to use them.

“Our home is easier to maintain because everything has a home, Bowen said.

HOME OFFICE - AFTER

HOME OFFICE - BEFORE

Fritz Klooz, owner of Innovative Garages in Avon said his company can maximize garage space with overhead storage, cabinets and grid wall systems and pulley systems.  “The idea is to get everything up off the floor of the garage so you can power wash your garage or sweep your floor a lot easier, Klooz said.

You don’t have to throw away and create additional waste when you purge. An environmentally savvy organizer will look to recycle whenever possible. Also, donations to authorized charities can be used as a tax deduction.

Angie Hicks is an Indianapolis resident and founder of Angie’s List, a national provider of consumer ratings in more than 500 categories of service.

(Because they wrote this great article about my business, I’m returning the favor by passing on their 15% coupon code)

Find reliable contractors and doctors when you join Angie’s List today – Use promo code LOCAL to save 15%.

Originally posted 2010-05-07 12:26:54. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Dresserz™ dresser ceramic knobs are 2″ in diameter and come in 2 styles (boys & girls)  in a set of 6 dresser knobs, available as individual knobs, or in packs of two. With Dresserz™ knobs, mom doesn’t have to make her own picture labels to place on the dresser drawer as I’ve seen many moms do.

Here’s what the sets looks like:

For warm weather, four new styles were just added:

Three for girls: shorts, skirts and tank tops

And one for boys:

What a great organizational solution for moms and kids!  Why didn’t I think of this??

What I also like about these knobs is that each knob is multi-colored, making it easy to match most kid’s room decor. And installation is easy – anyone can do it.  Each ceramic knob measures 2″ in diameter and comes with a 1″ screw that fits most dressers.

We now carry these fun, colorful and educational Dresserz™ knobs in The Simplified Home e-store.

Originally posted 2010-04-29 11:02:49. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Homeowner’s insurance or renter’s insurance is a necessity; it covers you for unexpected occurrences ranging from robberies to fires.

However, when it comes to assessing whether or not you have adequate coverage, the devil is in the details. For example, did you know that the majority of these plans do not cover floods or earthquakes or that some cover fire damage but not wildfire damage? With more and more extreme cases of weather and natural disasters, it is more important than ever to review your coverage and be certain that you have the best level of protection you can get given your budget constraints.

Here are 5 tips for getting your home insurance organized.

1. Watch What You Claim

Did you know that if you keep making small claims over and over, you may exhaust your insurance funds more quickly than you anticipated or be dropped from the plan? It may also cause your premiums significantly increase, in which case paying for that roof repair out of your pocket may be smarter financially. Look carefully at your plan before you make a claim or talk to your agent to find out all of the nitty gritty details on small claims and their effect on your coverage.

Valuables.doc by Buttoned Up - available at www.TheSimplifiedHome.net

2. Take Inventory

Do you know exactly what is in your home? First of all, write down from memory everything of value in your living room from electronics to DVDs. Now take that list to the living room. Did you remember it all? Now imagine doing that for your entire home after a fire rips through your home. Everyone has valuables; they are so much more than just artwork or televisions. Think about your CD’s, iPods, clothing, outerwear, golf clubs, Corningware, picture frames.  They are all valuable and worth something. Go through your home and take an inventory of everything in your house room by room. Take photos, keep the proofs of purchase for anything in your home over $200, get appraisals done on all luxury items like jewelry, and keep it all in an easy to grab binder that you can take with you at a moment’s notice. The other reason this step is important is you may find that you are carrying insurance for $25,000 worth of goods in your home, but actually have close to $50,000 worth of items in the house. You can also hire an insurance appraiser to go through your home after you take inventory if you would like. At the bare minimum, however, having the inventory log of the valuables in your home will get you a lot more in reimbursement if the worst does occur.

3. Determine Exactly What IS Covered

Insurance packets and their corresponding websites are not written for the layperson. They can be highly confusing, full of legal mumbo-jumbo, and contain asterisked scenarios such as “If your home is damaged in a fire you are covered for X amount of dollars.”* The small print under the asterisk then clarifies along the lines of *Note: Unless you own a red car, a monkey, or have ever eaten at Dale’s Deli.” These papers can be overwhelming, so schedule an appointment with your agent and discuss the ins and outs of your current coverage. To make the conversation easier, bring your valuables binder to talk about your home inventory, and discuss events that aren’t covered by your current plan, like sewage, hurricane, flood, earthquake, etc.

4. Equip and Prepare

Owning Insurance is one piece of the puzzle, but you can also take insurance into your own hands with proper emergency planning and preparation. For example, if you live in an area that has frequent wildfires, you should clear the brush around your property on a regular basis.  You may also want to consider applying a coat or two of fire deterrent paint.  If you live in a hurricane prone area, do you have proper roofing reinforcements and windows installed? Even if you don’t live in an area with extreme weather, simply having an alarm system means fire departments will be quickly alerted of flames and police of burglaries. These safety defenses also have an added bonus: they can lower your insurance rates dramatically.

5. Have an Insurance Assessor on Deck:

Keep the contact information of a trusted insurance assessor who is not affiliated with your insurance provider in your valuables inventory log. If you ever need to file a claim, have that third party assess your damage immediately. Your insurance company is going to do the same and they will try to pay you back as little as possible. Cover your bases and fight back by having another professional document the claim and cost so you get what you rightfully deserve. Your home is your safe haven, your livelihood. You should do everything you can to protect those assets by planning ahead.

We love Buttoned Up products and carry a wide variety in The Simplified Home. Here are a couple that I recommend for organizing home records and paper so you have what you need at your fingertips in the event of an emergency.

Life.doc - The only complete system for organizing all of your critical information in one spot.

The Life.doc binder by Buttoned Up will guide you through the process of capturing your critical information so it’s ready when you need it. Give yourself and your family peace of mind.

Learn more about Life.doc

Receipt.catcher – your receipts buttoned up.

The perfect spot for all those pesky receipts.

When it’s time to pay the taxes, balance your checkbook or return an item, you’ll know where it find the receipts when you use the convenient and compact Receipt.Catcher.

It includes nine tabbed sections that make it easy to classify receipts now and find them again later.

Learn more about Receipt.catcher

Collision.kit – The ONLY kit that ensures you have everything you need to accurately capture the details surrounding any car accident.

If you’ve ever been in a car accident, you know how critical it is to remember and document the facts after the accident. But when you’re shaken and upset it’s easy to leave the scene without complete information. Collision.kit from Buttoned Up ensures you have everything you need to record the details of the incident.

Learn more about Collision.kit

Pocket.doc – The ONLY perfectly portable record book for your essential information.

The Pocket.doc provides simple to fill out forms that easily fit into a wallet, purse or backpack. So you have critical emergency, medical, and contact information when and where you need it. 

Learn more about Pocket.doc

Originally posted 2009-09-28 15:13:52. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

By Anna in 2004

By Alena in 2008

By Janet in high school

Originally posted 2009-09-13 18:22:51. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Socks travel through several stages in the wash and wear cycle – from dresser drawer, being worn, to the washer, dryer, then sorted and matched with their mate, before they make it safely back to the dresser drawer. With so many steps in the process, no wonder they get lost and mismatched.

Socks that end up in mismatched piles and never make it safely back to the dresser drawer are useless clutter.

Have you considered the time it takes to match socks coming out of the laundry and getting them back in the drawer. Before I found the tool I’m about to tell you about, in our home our socks made it out of the laundry, but never seemed to get matched up, so they stayed in a yellow basket where each family member had to go to fish out and match up a pair of socks to wear for the day. Think of the daily chaos just trying to get dressed X 3. Only until it got so bad that my entire household’s inventory of socks were piled in a laundry basket, would I wage a sock sorting event. I got the kids involved by putting in a movie and all of us would spread out on the floor and match up socks, typically for the duration of the movie.

Perhaps you’re guilty of having “sock clutter”? Sock clutter consists of those orphan socks that litter your home, never to be worn again because the mate has been lost somewhere in the laundry process.

What if you had a tool that would eliminate both of these sock chores forever?

• The hours spent each week sorting and matching each family member’s socks
• Orphan sock clutter
• Fighting about whose socks are whose.

IMAGINE … never losing another sock or having to sort piles of socks again! Think of the time and space you’d get back. Imagine mornings running smoothly when family members now have easy access to a pair of socks.

As a Professional Organizer and busy mom of two, I am always on the look-out for home organizing and management tools that simplify daily home functions. Imagine how excited I was when I found Loc-A-Soks (also called Sock-Locks.)

With Sock-Locks you eliminate lost / orphan socks forever and save the time wasted sorting and matching socks.

With Loc-A-Sok, socks go from washer to dryer to dresser drawer all without sorting or losing socks.

Made in four bright colors (Blue, Hot Pink, Lime Green and Purple), you can assign a different colored set (10 Sock-locks per pack) for every family member and easily keep socks separated throughout the laundry process.

Sock-Locks work for all types of socks. Simply insert each sock, toes first through the grippers. The Loc-A-Sok is a one-step process designed to keep any socks paired from your laundry basket, to the washer, the dryer and into the dresser drawer.

No need to remove the Loc-A-Sok until socks are ready to wear. Store Sock-Locks near the laundry basket and attach socks to the Sock-Lock before dropping them in the laundry basket.

Made of durable plastic for long-term use, each pack includes enough for 10 pairs of socks, or 20 pairs of thin socks. Sock-Locks come in four colors making it easy to assign a different color to each family member.

As an Organizing Consultant, I recommend the Loc-A-Soks to anyone who wants to save time, eliminate inefficient home management tasks, teach their children organizational skills, save money by losing fewer socks, and be more organized, especially busy moms like me.

Sock-Locks make the perfect gift for busy moms, new mothers, caregivers, those with memory challenges … and really anyone! Everyone can benefit from this time-saving product.

Learn more about Loc-A-Soks.

Originally posted 2009-09-07 14:53:34. Republished by Blog Post Promoter