Wiggle Room | Organization for Busy Moms!

Everyone Can Use Some Wiggle Room

The holiday season is upon us!  It can be a  fun time of year (parties! presents!) but also stressful and time consuming (parties! presents!).  Sometimes finding the right gift for a loved one or family member is easy, but often it can be a challenge.  What do you give the person that has EVERYTHING?  How about giving the gift of organization…

A Wiggle Room gift certificate can be a creative and thoughtful way to help bring order to the lives of busy moms and dads, overworked professionals, friends or relatives that are moving (or have recently), or might be expecting a new child- really, just about anyone!

If you’ve used Wiggle Room’s services yourself, you’re familiar with our process, but if not, here’s a bit more about what “giving” a gift of Wiggle Room looks like:

The Wiggle Room Experience

Wiggle Room’s goal is to create systems that simplify clients’ lives.  Home organization is such a personal service, we must take time to establish a relationship with each of our clients, starting with our free 30-minute face-to-face assessment.

We do an in-home assessment, and create a plan for working together.  Each client and space is different; the size of the space, the current state of “things”, and the client’s goals are all factors in determining how much time a project will take. We aim to use what you have around the house so you’re not spending lots of money on supplies too.

While our services are available hourly, we also offer two (money saving!) packages.  These offer some guidance in figuring out what size gift is appropriate for the lucky recipient.

A Mini-Makeover ($265 for 4 hrs):

• Includes up to 4 hours of hands-on organizing
• Perfect for smaller spaces, like overwhelming toy closets, overflowing kitchen cabinets or bathrooms
• Helpful for busy people that want a push to get started on a larger organizing sweep through their homes

A Complete Makeover ($499 for 8 hours):

• Includes up to 8 hours of hands-on organizing
• Perfect for entire rooms, like kitchens or home offices, or kid’s playrooms or bedrooms (especially those where you can no longer see the floor!)
• Helpful for people that need an organizational system, tailored to their needs, and strive to turn kids into allies against clutter

To read more, check out the “Organization Packages” on our website.  And don’t just take our word for it- listen to those whose lives have been impacted through some professional organizational help!

If the gift of Wiggle Room sounds like just the right thing for someone on your list this year, do not hesitate to contact Wiggle Room!  We’d love to take the time to speak with you and tailor a gift package that suits your recipient’s needs perfectly!

A Tale of Two Closets

This week’s featured makeover shows off a project we see all too often- the extra closet… with oh so much potential, but currently the bane of our organizational existence!

This hallway closet in question serves a family of four, Mom & Dad, and their 2 adorable young sons. As is often the case with shared spaces, it seemed that each family member saw the closet serving a different purpose… and weren’t shy about utilizing it the way they saw fit! Certainly not overnight, but rather in time, this wonderful extra closet turned into ground zero for cleaning supplies, tools, sports equipment, packing peanuts, assorted toys, art supplies, cycling gear, holiday items & artifacts… you get the idea, and I’m sure you can relate. In the absence of a clear system- not only for “what belongs”, but where it belongs– a “system” of chaos emerges, and nobody seems to get what they need from the space 🙁

The challenge was on, to design an organizational system catering to everyone’s needs, and in a way that’s easy for everyone to follow (even little ones are often great helpers once they know how!)

Rolling Up Our Sleeves

As always, the first order of business was to “get sorted”. The challenge in this case was how much stuff crammed atop the closet’s high wire shelves. Coupled with the floor being crowded with an assortment of items that made stepping into the closet nearly impossible, you can imagine our trepidation as we gently starting pulling things out. It looked as though if we moved one thing wrong, we may cause an avalanche down on top of us!

Not to be deterred, we got each and every thing off those shelves & off that floor, and found an ideal closet space awaiting us!

With the closet emptied, we arranged all it’s contents on the kitchen table. Next step, I started grouping items (“like with like”). As I did this, our client started spotting items she didn’t need to live in the closet. 

With all the contents sorted, it was easy to find new, more suitable homes, for a lot of what had accumulated in the closet.

• Spare electrical parts and infrequently used household sprays moved to the garage, though collected in a bins rather than loose.
• Expired art supplies, like dried out paints were trashed while the good supplies moved into the kids’ art cabinet (a project we had tackled in September).
• Out-of-season sports equipment, along with other infrequently used stuff headed off to the basement.

After we purged or relocated the bulk of the closet’s contents, the pile of things to return to the closet was actually quite small. All in all, we needed just 5 different clear bins to get the closet back in shape.  

Order Restored

We took a step back to assess, and it was shocking how much room was still leftover, and better yet, how much light now filled the space!  With all the extra space we set out to uncover items lurking down in the basement or otherwise out of the way that could use a closer home due to frequent use. We made room for a stash of paper towels, Kleenex, and toilet paper up from the basement storage so that fewer trips downstairs were necessary. 

One remaining order of business- purchase and install clips (similar to this 5-Position Wall Organizer) to hold the mops and brooms flush against the empty right wall for easy access.

With two people, the closet overhaul took less than 2 hours! While we wrapped up, our relieved client admitted what we hear all too often- it was the kind of project she never would’ve found time to have tackle solo.

If you’re looking for a little help getting a hall closet under control, you know how to find us! And who knows, you just may be our next featured makeover!

It’s hard to narrow the act of organizing down to one sentence.  Each space and challenge is as unique as the person to whom it belongs.  However, after years of working with busy Moms, one key mantra has emerged:

“Like With Like.”

It’s quite simple, probably even obvious to some, but after peering into many closets, drawers, cabinets, and desks, we can assure you that it’s not always so.

One Mantra, Many Spaces

“Like with like” comes into play in just about every space we encounter.  In organizing a child’s playroom, it means storing all the blocks in one bin, storing doll clothes with dolls, keeping all the craft materials in one area, (and often breaks down farther than that).  In a pantry makeover it means keeping all your bottles of oil together, perhaps next to the vinegars, keeping cereal in one place, and canned veggies in another.  When you keep like with like in terms of food, you eliminate the frantic opening of cupboards at supper times when you’re thinking “Gah, I KNOW I have canned tomatoes SOMEWHERE.” 

In a recent bathroom organization project (which technically was little more than surveying the contents of the drawers, sorting it, and moving it around) I discovered that the client had 12 unopened tubes of toothpaste, 6 new cans of shaving cream, and no fewer than 35 bars of soap, scattered across 6 drawers and 4 cupboards.  Stashing commonly used products is practical, but we want to make sure it’s judicious— not because too much clutter is hiding what you already own.  After the reorganization, top drawers held items used every day, while the bottom drawers housed the (plentiful) spares.  Each type of product was stored together, so when the client opens any drawer it’s immediately obvious what they have and what they might need.

Try It Yourself!

If you’ve been meaning to organize a portion of your home, whether large or small, but haven’t been able to figure out how to go about it, give our “like with like” mantra a whirl.  Pull everything out, sort it, and then put it back “like with like”.  Be sure to keep commonly used items easy to access!  Once like items are stored together— whether Tonka toys, towels, or toothpaste, you’ll be on your way to easier and more streamlined storage solutions.