An admission of messiness and the clean up effort

For the last couple of years my office/art space somehow got completely out of control. I was so busy doing things that I never stopped to take time and file stuff or put it away because I didn't have the tools to do that. After I accumulated piles and piles of "stuff" I became overwhelmed. ACK! I tried to organize myself but wasn't very successful so I hired a professional organizer. There are such people out there and though it wasn't cheap the results are amazing to me. To have someone know what sort of organizing that will help you personally makes a big difference. To have someone there who is a hard worker and just does the tasks and almost knows what those are before you do instead of hiring someone that says " now what do you want me to do?" If I knew the answer I wouldn't have hired someone! So, I am going to post the before and after pictures. I will preface these by saying the job is not complete. I still have to purge my filing cabinet (a whole other job) and you'll see in the before pictures all the "art items" that are displayed I still have to cull through and decide where they go. I think the Kayak Jack will go to my dear friend Jack in Indiana for his McIver bag. The rest I still have to deal with.

Before photos:



















I painted one of the walls and want to paint the others when I get time to pull everything away from the walls. That could be a while! I removed a piece of furniture that I really like but it doesn't a function in this space other than it didn't fit anywhere else in the house. I'll have to sell it. I added a bookshelf too.



















After Photos:















All the see through bins are labeled and because of the nature of some of my art projects that are collaged the organizer, Jennifer Coveny is who I hired from Santa Cruz, even let me have a bin titled "decorative doodads". These organizers can be tough about what they let you keep! Her comment to me upon my wanting to keep bits of ribbons and well "doodaddy stuff" was that with most of her clients she would not let them keep that sort of stuff but she says to me "I actually think you might use it"! So HA! I get a doodad bin!! LOL!