Organizing the Catch-All Room

Well, it’s the fifth week of the month which means your weekly “tip” comes in the form of a previous job. 🙂

Some homes have “catch-all drawers”, “catch-all cupboards” and “catch-all spaces”… This home had a “catch-all room”. I met the mom in a ballet class we both were taking and every week she would tell me she needed to hire me “one day” (which I hear a lot) and she actually did! I went to her house for a consultation and she showed me her “catch-all room”. As we discussed her desires for the room, she told me it needed to be multi-functional for her family. She is a crafter and seamstress so she needed a space for that, she home-schools her 3 kids and so she needed a space for them to do work individually, she wanted a space for all the arts and crafts supplies they use every day, along with a place to store books, old pictures and other random items that didn’t have a home. If this sounds overwhelming, it was. It was a a VERY cluttered space but had SO much potential.

We worked hard for several hours and came up with 4 different “zones” in this large room. She had her craft and sewing space, her kids got their desk space (she only has 1 kid at a time sit a do work so the desk she had was perfect), the large bookshelf that already had arts and craft supplies on it just needed to be organized and the small bookshelf was perfect for the items her husband needed stored, along with the pictures and books we found along the way.

The one tip I’ll give to you guys based on this job is this – purge! Every single item in your space needs to be addressed. A lot of what you’ll see in the pictures was thrown out or donated. If she hadn’t been so ready to get rid of the unnecessary, this job would have been a lot harder and a lot longer.

Overall it was a great experience and I was thrilled I could help a friend out. Scroll down to see the “before and after” pictures.