I have been a Professional Organizer for nearly six years. In that time, my husband and I welcomed a son and we’ve moved twice. I didn’t truly appreciate the services that my own company offers until those two moves – the first when Harry was a year old and the second when he had just turned two. Kids are tiny, but their stuff takes up an outrageous amount of space!
For the most recent move, I decided that I was going to be my own best client. I scheduled seven of my organizers to arrive on a Wednesday morning. We worked for 6 hours and got my entire house packed. (For the record, A Place for Everything doesn’t usually do the packing. We usually recommend that you hire the moving company to pack and have us unpack at the new house.) On Thursday the moving company arrived in the morning, loaded the truck, drove to the new house and unloaded. And on Friday morning, seven organizers came back and unpacked, organized and put everything away. We had a few boxes that we couldn’t unpack because we were planning to finish the basement, but for the most part the entire move was done in three days!
Soon after, I had the privilege of working the same magic for clients. They were moving from a 13,000+ square foot home to an 8000 square foot home about 20 minutes away. But there was a catch: their house sold so quickly that their new house would not be built in time. So they had to find a rental… an 11,000 square foot rental! I managed the entire week-long move, from getting bids from the movers to bringing a team in to declutter the entire house. On days 1 and 2, we supervised as the movers packed the entire house. We made sure that all the boxes were labelled properly so that all of the items would end up in the right location at the rental. On days 3 and 4 the movers loaded the trucks and took everything to the new house. I had previously photographed every piece of furniture in the house. I worked with an interior designer to label the location of all the furniture and I stood at the entrance to the house directing the movers to the right location for each piece of furniture. On Friday, day 5… I brought a team of 12 organizers in to unpack and put everything away. We unpacked the kitchen, pantry, a butlers’ pantry, bar, master bedroom, three guest rooms, two offices, living room, garage, mudroom, recreation room and basement bar.
During the day on Friday, while my team was working their organizing magic, I supervised the piano movers and also the plant movers to get everything safely moved and perfectly placed in the new house. At 6pm on Friday the clients returned home to find everything done. The client’s husband said, “This move was so easy!” And six months later when their newly constructed home was ready… we did it all again!
Some things that I’ve learned on this organizing / relocating journey:
- Moving is the perfect time to be super-critical about the “stuff” in your life. If you don’t use it, love it, or need it, don’t give it a place in your new house.
- For me, what’s really important is the time and experiences that I share with family and friends. The whole point of hiring organizers (in my mind) is to get me back my life faster.
- For some of my clients, their important thing is work, sports, or some other priority or hobby. The point is that our organizing services let our clients outsource the tasks they don’t want or don’t have time to deal with so they can get back to living the life the want to live!
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