Be Décor Savvy—Master Your Home’s Ambience!

Professional Organizers Tell How to Love Your Home Again

Mark Twain once smartly wrote “One may make the house a palace of sham, or he can make it a home—a refuge.” True, home is where the heart is, and the way we look at it—as Twain mischievously suggests—is a mere reflection of ourselves. For some, arranging and organizing the home into a sanctuary of comfort is a fervent passion; for the chronically busy, however, it may be a grudging task of dread. Keeping things organized against a full work schedule, small children, rascally pets, or major life transitions can send us to the edges of the love-hate spectrum when we think about our own home. But fear no more, for home organization does not have to be forever considered a mountainous snowball for those of us who are otherwise décor challenged. If you want to re-love the place in which you live, first you must learn how to make the best use of that space you call home.

“You don’t need to be an interior decorator to create a harmonious home,” says the mother-daughter organizational team of Kerry Rehberg and Erika Gentner. Rehlberg is a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), Institute for Challenging Disorganization (ICD) and Association of Personal Photo Organizers (APPO), and board secretary for the AZ Hoarding Task Force. Most applicably, both she and Genter are known in Scottsdale as the Dependable Divas. If clutter is keeping you from having the home of your dreams, the organizational gurus recommend envisioning each messy room as instantly transformed into that dream and then creating simple steps until you reach that vision. It’s too overwhelming and unrealistic to give yourself the giant task of creating an immaculately organized house. Instead, start with one room, choose a theme, and formulate a constructive attack plan.

Is annoying clutter really what you want as the focus of your home’s ambience, or would you rather be surrounded by energy-inspiring décor in your humble abode? The first step to home harmony is ridding the room of items that don’t contribute to the mood you wish to capture. “One of the most prevalent problems we see is people holding onto items that they do not cherish,” Rehlberg says. “If you continue gathering items—such as a vase Aunt Mary gave you when you really don’t love it—then eventually you are surrounded by clutter in your home.”

Purging your home of clutter doesn’t mean throwing away the items you care about and replacing everything with storage bins and file cabinets. “Uncluttered real-life décor of your interests will create the authentic, peaceful, or dynamic environment you ultimately desire,” Gentner says. Make an item like a vibrant painting or crystal lamp the inspiration for the room’s theme. Your beloved possessions—or even natural elements of your region like seashells and sand or local flowers, plants, fruits, and vegetables—can become the theme’s focal point. You can even get creative and recycle cherished items into newfangled décor (the Dependable Divas love using old sports tees and sewing them together into a comfy quilt).

Next, becoming organized doesn’t equate being impeccably persnickety; it just means that everything has its place. “The trick is not to overdo the amount of items you try to organize into one room,” Gentner advises. “Recognize the limits of the space you have.” Depending on the purpose of the room (e.g., for entertaining guests as opposed to an isolated workspace), a system should contain all the materials that bring something useful to that space. Place necessary items in convenient yet attractive locations in the room. These can be as simple as a decorative bin for storing shoes near the front door, a charming coat/hat rack, or a colorful pocket chart for organizing bills and to-do lists. Show off your antique china in neat displays and tuck away boxed items in the cabinets. The more visually appealing your organizational system is, the more likely you’ll be willing to implement it. Keep unnecessary items from taking over the spaces used for family gathering and obstructing from their mood and energy. Get stacks of paperwork off the table or desk and into fashionable fabric or magnetic boards that everyone can use.

To go from having a house to owning your home, create an organizational system—as simple or elaborate as needed—and adhere to it. You can spend as little as 15 minutes a day returning items to their proper places. Home organization doesn’t have to become a way of life—if you keep the system intact, your love and appreciation for the look of your home will follow.

For more helpful tips, visit Dependable Diva’s Web site at dependable-divas.com.

By LeAnne Bagnall
Photos courtesy Dependable Divas