No Wire Hangers Organizing

Growing up my sister and I had this friend, Julie Naylon, who was very entrepreneurial. She didn't just have a Lemonade Stand, she ran a Lemonade Corporation. She didn't just babysit, she offered "Babysitting Club" involving several kids, crafts, games and shows in her basement.

She also liked to organize things. She'd come to my house and start playing in the room I shared with my sister only to be overwhelmed by the desire, no, the need to organize our stuff. I know this will sound like a bit of a cop out, or maybe projection. But my sister and my mother are both incredible pack rats, I am not.

My sister's collecting involves a lot of clothes she doesn't wear, along with various small items she may not "need" but they make her smile and so she keeps them. Like a Clash of the Titan's lunchbox, or a collection of Japanese stickers, or a box jammed with 500 pieces of costume jewelry.

I shudder to think what could happen to my sister if she ever decides to have children and/or her dog starts creating art projects.

It's possible all this has changed now that my sister lives across the country and pretends to be an adult. But back when my friend came to play at our house, the bedroom I shared with my sister was a disaster area of massive proportions. A disaster Julie would spend several hours trying to weed through and make sense of.

A little over a year ago Julie, decided to open an eco friendly organizing business based in Los Angeles called No Wire Hangers, and that's a great name for her business for a couple of reasons, not just because it instantly makes me think of Joan Crawford screaming at her children with cold cream all over her face. But also because about 3.5 billion wire hangers are dumped into landfills each year, that's equivalent to 60,000 cars. (Please see Julie's article here for more information.)

Back in March Daily Candy featured her business and since then business is booming. She offered to come to my house while in town for her mother's birthday this weekend to help me organize something in my house.

I honestly feel pretty organized. I don't collect clutter, I wear all my clothes, I buy what I need and use it up before I buy more. However there was kind of an issue with my upstairs front hall closet and I thought I'd have Julie help me with that. As we started to go through what I had, I mentioned I could move some things to the basement. And the minute I said it, I regretted it, because the next words out of her mouth were, "Can I see your basement?"

Logan was outside so I was able to show her the shame that is our basement. If Logan had known what I was about to do he would have stopped us by creating a distraction, like driving our car through the back door. Or setting himself on fire.

The thing about the basement is it's really dark and not finished like the last place. Also unlike the last place it doesn't fill with water in the spring, so that's novel. We moved in with grand plans for the basement, since we lost the family room in this move. We wanted a place for the kids toys and a place our kids could go with their friends to play or to contain the children when we invite half of the city of Royal Oak over for a bar-b-que and it rains.

We put a huge shelf from Ikea down there and a tv with cable and dvr and almost all the kid's toys. We planned to put down a nice big carpet remnant, paint the cement floor and the walls and maybe some fabric to disguise the mechanicals of the basement. Then we ran out of money and everything just kind of stood still.

Except that we kept finding more and more stuff to put right there at the bottom of the steps. Like the things for Logan's displaced office and every other thing we weren't sure what to do with. It was a pretty ridiculous pile down there by the time Julie showed up.

I would show you a picture but Logan's standing right next to me with a can of gasoline to dump over himself and a match.

Julie saw the basement and the wheels instantly started turning in her head and she begged me to please, please let her help me with my basement.

In about an hour Julie and I (and her Aunt Julie....of Menagerie Redesign and this post) had taken out one recycling box of stuff and one box of things to donate. Then she reused things like the two chairs that won't fit in our new living room, the coffee table from our old family room and the rug we were about to offer for free on Craigslist and created a space for the kids to play with their toys and hang out.

She did all this without giving away a single item of Logan's, I'll have to have her come back for that task at a later date. When he's heavily sedated.

In essence she took a space I had totally given up on using anytime soon and created a space my kids are happy to be in. (The TV and DVR don't hurt either....)

All in all a productive day. I mentioned Julie brought her Aunt Julie with her, who we had a quick color consultation with about our dining room. She also brought her mother who reminded me about all the great recycling programs for South Oakland County and picked some weeds in my backyard. In addition, her Aunt Jean, the woman my children wish was their mother, is up from Texas and came over to take my kids to breakfast.

Julie is working in New York City for the month of July and Chicago for August and after that it's back to Los Angeles. Though I can't guarantee she'll bring a gardener, paint consultant and a babysitter to your house, I still highly recommend getting in touch if you need help calming the chaos in your home, it's amazing what a second set of eyes can do.

Comments

[Wendy]

Hey,
there's a Clash of the Titans Lunch box on Ebay right now for $30. Mmaybe she's just holding it as an investment.

[Alison of a Gun]

Expedit! Have one, love it.

[jenB]

This is great! Yay Julie! Although I am considering the Clash of the Titans Lunch Box mentioned above...

[Michelle]

OMG, I live in LA and *just* had a conversation with the SO about bringing someone in to help with our space-use issues. And since I'm currently unemployed, waiting till September is probably a good idea anyway. Thanks for the recommendation!

[rich leivenberg]

I greatly admired Julie for her marketing savvy and her genuine interest in making all of our lives better and less cluttered. Great job!

[Bari]

Do you know if she is taking any more clients in Metro Detroit - I'm in Berkley and would love to hire someone like Julie to come in and kick my butt - I mean help me with my little house - since with this lovely economy we can't sell it for something larger. I would love help to make it better!

[Tameson O'Brien]

Umm, was that a walk out basement with glass doors that doesn't flood that was left unfinished? I can't beleive your luck! I have a rubble stone cellar with tide lines 4 feet high, with such a regularity to the flooding that we have 3 back up sump pumps. Though the flooding did come in handy during the ice storms last December when we were out of power for weeks - we used the flood water to flush our toilets. My kids would be so jealous of your "playroom" - I'm not going to let them see this.

[ladytheaj]

okay, I love her

[Shannon]

Wow, now everyone I know is famous!

[rbiggs]

Is there a place where you can store HER and keep her forever?!

[Teri Lynn]

Damnit! $30?! I KNEW I shouldn't have gotten rid of the lunchbox! I even had the thermos...

That being said, even with the Great Purge of 08 (AKA the Move), I can't let Julie come to my house. She can come visit, and I will put her up in a hotel on my own dime. It's just too much!

[CanadaSteph]

Oh Dear God I want my own Julie!!!

Our house looks tidy because my closets are stuffed with junk. I need a Toronto Julie ASAP. Here is the thing though - I feel so uptight when people see my junk. It makes me feel like a failure and that I'm not an adult!!

[MelissaS]

I know Steph! I did too. I was mortified for her to see my basement. Luckily we've moved twice in two years so we don't have a TON of extra junk.

Still, I think a good organizer is trained not to make you feel judged.

[AmyinMotown]

We had a garage sale with a friend (gigantic FAIL, bad weather and crappy promotion on the part of my friend's sub--she actually did more than they did!) so I cleared out my whooolllee basement and a lot of the garage. We hadn't moved in seven years, which is the longest I have lived anywhere (although much of my crap lived at my parents' house for about 20 years). That really helped to purge all that crap--but now it's occurred to me we just have Too Much Stuff in too little space. I would LOVE an organizer to come here and help! My cousin's wife is talking about doing it as a job and I am considering asking her to start with me as a cheap client or trade for press release and website writing. How awesome to have friends who do that stuff for you!

[Maggie]

If Julie came to my house, I'd have to insist that she not look under the beds, behind the book case, or in our "filing cabinet" which doesn't have files in it at all. Shrug. Blush.

[Patricia Rosen]

That's a perfect combination - organizing and being green too. It sounds like she loves her job and you love the results.

[AmyMusing]

I'm reading a book "Throw Away 50 Things" and the ideas and reasons behind getting rid of stuff are great but I keep editing Throw Away as I read it, changing it to Give Away, or sell or put in a pile for the garage sale I'm going to have.....some day...soon....

Can Julie come to my basement next??