How to Get Your Outdoor Space Spring Ready

“Traders en route from the Caribbean to the British, French and Spanish colonies were influenced by island architecture, rich with large open porches to accommodate the humid climate.”

- Old House Online

It’s spring! One of the most favorite times in Southern homes! We Southerners love our large porches where we can socialize with the neighbors or our backyard outdoor kitchens where we can cook and entertain anywhere from 5 to 500 guests before we get into the raw, humid heat of summer.

We are a social culture down here, but how do we keep these areas tidy and neat in between parties? Let me show you how!

Porches are fairly simple since we don’t keep much out there. Wiping down furniture and swings with a damp cloth is usually all that’s needed. The porch itself can be swept or blown clear of any debris. If it has mildew, you may need a good power wash to get it all cleaned up. Most of us have taken our plants inside for winter so now is the time to bring them outside and spruce them up! (Y’all know a proper southern porch must have hanging ferns, right?) Make sure the railings and steps are safe and secure, especially if they are wood. Don’t forget to look up and make sure the ceiling fans are cleaned and old wasp nests and dirt diver houses are removed.

Outdoor kitchens need a little more TLC. Many outdoor kitchens have grills, sinks, stone counters, storage space, outdoor furniture, and umbrellas. Some even have refrigerators or other fun things, like pizza ovens! Mike and I spend one of the first weekends in spring getting everything wiped out and wiped down. We also power wash the concrete and outdoor rugs (when we aren’t at soccer games!) Finally, we make lists of things we need to buy for the upcoming entertainment season.

Wipe down all outdoor surfaces with a wet towel.

Tip: I keep all the outdoor items in closed containers because, well, Louisiana has a lot of bugs and critters.

Speaking of that, check your bug spray stock and sunscreen too. (Sunscreen expires, so check the expiration dates.)

Tip: If mosquitos are a big problem in your area, take old wine bottles and repurpose them into citronella lanterns! We have them hanging across our porch so those pesky little things don’t bother us!

We also make sure to have a full tank of propane for the Easter crawfish boil because if you grab that tank on boil day and it’s empty, you’ll be madder than a wet hen!

Here is my personal list:

1. Clean the grill

2. Wipe the counters

3. Scrub the sink

4. Clean out the beer fridge.

5. Clean out the trash cans and recycle cans.

6. Wipe ceiling fans

7. Check propane

8. Power wash concrete, outdoor rugs and outdoor cushions.

9. Uncover and wipe down outdoor furniture.

10. Uncover televisions (We can’t miss March Madness!)

11. Restock the outdoor spices (which live in a latch box inside because it’s too humid to keep them outside), paper goods, and outdoor linens.

12. Does any pool maintenance need to be done?

13. Check the fishing rods and tackle. (We have a pond. Hunting season is almost over so fishing begins. Remember, I live in Sportsman’s Paradise!)

Check out our Pinterest board to get some spring inspiration for your outdoor spaces!

Easy Ways to KEEP Your House Organized

“Dear Ms. Chaos,

How do you stay organized?  

Disorganized and frustrated,

Evelyn”

Dear Evelyn,

The key word here is stay not get organized.  As professional organizers, we help lots of people get organized but the main question we get asked is how do we stay organized.  Well for me, I guess you could place me in a category called “chronic tidiers”. I recently read a blog that ended up being an advertisement, as many are, but there were some good nuggets of information in that blog. Primarily that most organized people are chronic tidiers.  What I’m saying is that they constantly put things away and tidy up their spaces. The number one bit of advice I will give you is to constantly tidy up your home. This is obviously easier to do when everything in your home has a spot. My favorite personal quote is ”In order to have a spotless home everything must have a spot”.  Now, that doesn’t mean you will have a clean home. That’s a whole other category for another day! But if you just can’t wait, check out some of our other blogs. ;)

Back when I was working in a traditional office, I was introduced to a concept called never touch a paper more than once.  And it really works. If you pick up a paper, take an action. Read it, file it, throw it away - you get the picture. I adopt this same principle to everything in my home.  Start paying attention to your habits. Become your own social experiment. If you find yourself complaining about having a messy home you most likely pick up items and set them down because you don’t know what to do with said items.  The first step to achieving a tidy home is finding a place for all the things in your home. Then you can simply return your items to those places. Professional organizers like the Chaos Organizing teams can help you establish places for the things you love.

If you touch a piece of paper, do something with it!

Chronic organizers also constantly edit their possessions.  When you pick something up, evaluate it. Do you need to keep it?  If yes, where does it go? Put it back immediately. If you don’t need it then put it into a donation box or into the trash.  

Houses get messy when we don’t know what to do with our stuff.  We start saying “I’ll deal with that later”, which is a slippery slope people!  “Later” becomes a massive, overwhelming job requiring a holiday to tackle when had you just found a logical place, a donation box, or the trash can you would already be done.  

Keep reading for more ideas on finding a place for things!

Store your shoes in clear boxes so you can easily see and decide your style for the day

If you're a fan of the movie "Up!" keep your vacation change in a fun jar. No more throwing loose change in a random drawer!

Designate a trendy basket for items like keys, sunglasses, or wallets.

Label closed baskets with cute tags like this so you can easily see what's in each one

Even hardware has a place! Get a storage unit like this and label all the drawers.

Grab some baskets like these and label them for miscellaneous storage

A place for everything, and everything in its place.

--Samual Smiles

Pro Tips:  Put your items away immediately.  If an something doesn’t have a place, create one or get rid of it. Constantly edit your life.  Give us a call if you need help getting started.

If you’re a chronic organizer and have some helpful hints to share, please let us know in the comments! We love seeing what people can create!

Tips for Organizing your Mail

MAIL! It drives us crazy! Yes, me too. I had a beautiful command center system set up until 2016 and with the flood, came chaos for my system. We haven’t gotten back on track until just recently. 3 years people….I’m an organizer who was letting mail get the best of me! Until now…

My old system was perfect for our busy family. We had a piece of furniture with 4 drawers in it so each person had a drawer. My husband and I would put the mail items that needed our attention in our drawers, which was handled daily or weekly. The kids kept their papers that needed referencing throughout the year in their drawers. Their drawers were cleaned out at the end of each school year and the papers were either recycled or filed into a file with their school year at the top.

Simple, right?

Well, after the flood, we remodeled and that piece of furniture is no longer where we walk in the door. What was I thinking? While the mail was getting handled (kind of!), the solution was piles on my dining room table or kitchen counter. Not a solution at all. It was time to find a new system.

Tip: Never handle paper more than once if you can.

Because the old system worked so well, I wanted the new system to be similar. I decided to use my vertical wall space. I ordered a set of these wood wall files from Ballard Design and I love them. Now each person has a pocket. The pockets are (file) deep so our action items are kept in a file folder. (I’m thinking of adding a cup hook for keys on the side as well)

TIP: My junk mail never enters the house. It goes straight into my recycle bin.

School/medical papers that are necessary to keep go into a file in that person’s bin.

My own bin has the following folders.

• Pay/Do: This file usually contains bills, invitations that need a gift (I immediately put the date on the calendar before dropping it into the file.), insurance explanation of benefits for me to double check, etc. If you are one that needs to see items to remember them, try adding a bulletin board or magnet board to your command area.

• Reference: Anything that I may need to refer back to in the coming months. This file is usually empty, but every now and then, I need to hang onto something.

• File: This, too, stays pretty slim. I don’t keep copies of anything that can be found online or that I can easily get a copy of such as statements or bills. I’m pretty brutal about the things I keep in my filing box. (Yes, a box! Not a cabinet!)

I do keep anything I would need for taxes or that would be more difficult to attain. (Lifetime hunting and fishing licenses, birth or wedding certificates, dog’s rabies vaccination and microchip papers, etc.) What do you need to keep? That is something to decide on your own with guidance from your accountant or attorney. I try to file once a month. If you keep more, weekly filing may be needed.

Since I love my SBO community of organizers, I thought I‘d share some tips and tricks from some of the other organizers that I admire. Enjoy!

Tidy Tip from Sort and Sweet if you need help with organizing your taxes! Watch video here.

Christy Lingo @ Simple Solutions has a podcast dealing with paper clutter. (There is an awesome cocktail recipe too!)

Use the CHAOS Method™ for Tidying Up the Playroom

Louisiana children have several days off of school this week thanks to the Mardi Gras Holidays and Texas children will be out of school celebrating spring break over the next few weeks. When my children were of school age, we would use these holidays to kick start our spring cleaning saving the warmer summer months for beach trips because who wants to be at the beach in 40-degree weather? Well actually I might…LOL. At any rate, today we are talking about cleaning and organizing the rooms your children use.

Between Christmas, birthdays, and the ever-doting grandparent, it doesn’t take long for toys to take over a home becoming the main décor element. Ask any new parent about their home life and the first thing they will tell you is that their home is overrun with toys.

For years I kick started my spring cleaning over Mardi Gras or Spring Break holidays by decluttering and rethinking our toy situation. Most years it was simply too cold and wet to plan outdoor activities so getting my kids onboard with the interior spring cleaning was relatively easy. Enough time had passed for their Christmas toys to settle in and for the older toys to embrace their new status as either a classic favorite or destiny with the donation pile. By encouraging my children to participate in the process of sorting and purging I taught them the valuable lessons of decluttering, organizing and donating.

Some years we even used this time to redecorate their bedrooms or play spaces which was a fun bonus! This is a huge motivator to adolescent girls ages 9 – 15 whose tastes flip from pink and green to orange and turquoise like a young gymnast learning how to do a back handspring. It’s also a huge motivator for a junior high boy eager to get rid of Thomas the Train décor!

If toys are your home’s main decor theme, stick around to see how our CHAOS Method can help you take control allowing you to take back at least part of your home.

C – Clear, Categorize, Clean

The first step in spring cleaning your children’s play spaces is to gather all the toys into one room. Then sort them into categories. Toys oftentimes fall into these categories:

• Dolls

• Stuffed animals

• Puzzles and games

• Blocks and Legos

• Cars, trains and trucks

If you don’t wish to see the huge pile of toys, which I must mention is quite beneficial in getting your child to understand just how many toys they own, then pick a category like dolls for instance and make a game of gathering every doll in the house. Set a timer to keep your child on track.

H – Helpful or Hurtful

Now that you have gathered and categorized the toys it is time to decide whether the item is helpful or hurtful. We do this through questions like:

• “Do you still play with this toy?”

• “Do you have all of the pieces to play this game?”

• “Is this toy broken?”

• “Have you outgrown this toy?”

I’m sure you can add to this line of questioning.

A - Action

If it’s broken or missing pieces it is ready for the trash pile. If the toy is in good condition but your child has outgrown its usefulness, put it into the donation pile. Discuss how helpful your children are being for freeing up space in your home for new treasurers and how excited some kid will be with this new toy.

We have a saying in our home…”It’s not new but its new to me!” This encouraged our children to embrace the idea of recycling and upcycling.

O - Organize

Evaluate whether your existing storage solutions are working. If not, why? Colorful bins and fun containers can be a motivating source to get your child to put their toys away properly. Scroll down for some examples of how we incorporated storage bins.

S – Simplify

Create age appropriate labels that your child can interpret. Notice I said interpret not read. The goal is to teach your child from an early age that putting their stuff where it belongs is part of playtime. Pictures work well for young children.

The process of decluttering and organizing the playroom can be very overwhelming. It’s important to teach your children the lessons of living an organized life as this will impact them in their schooling and throughout their adult lives.

Please don’t hesitate to call us for help. We have many strategies to get your kids on board with this process. Taking care of your home is a family responsibility and should not weigh heavily on the shoulders of one or two people.

Getting Ready for the Big Move

Dear Ms. Chaos,

I just found out from my husband that we are being transferred to Houston.  Please help!!  We have been living in this home for over ten years and have accumulated way too much stuff.  I need to have this house ready to put on the market in a month.  Where should I start?

Anxiety ridden and Terribly Overwhelmed,

Ms. Thibodeaux

---

Dear Ms. Thibodeaux,

Congratulations on your upcoming move to Houston.  It’s a very nice city with lots to do and plenty of Cajun people so you will fit right in!  Also, spring is the perfect time to put your home on the market as families will be planning where they want to live come the end of the school year.

I recently helped a friend get her house ready for the Houston real estate market and thought perhaps I should share some of the tips we discussed.

1. Fix anything that is broken and complete unfinished home projects.

Prospective buyers are getting a sense of how much care and maintenance you have put into your home.  Neglected maintenance and unfinished projects that are easily spotted will leave them asking what else needs tending.  

2.  Keep everything neutral to appeal to more buyers. 

You want your home to appeal to the largest number of people.  If time allows, consider a fresh coat of paint in a neutral color but for heaven’s sake, let that paint dry before shutting any doors.  I just looked at a potential rental house that was freshly painted and several cabinets could not be opened because they were painted shut!  Needless to say, we passed on that house.  

3.  Remove any holiday décor before the real estate photos are taken!!!

Holiday décor is a huge part of Southern homes and I am NOT advocating for you to stop decorating while your house is on the market. (Well, maybe I kind of am…LOL).  We want your house to sell and sell fast but in the event it does not, you DO NOT want your Mardi Gras or Easter decorations in the real estate photos being shown in August.  That will give prospective buyers the idea you have a lot of room for negotiation in the selling price.  

4.  Remove personal collections and photos.

This is widely spread advice that I cautiously buy into because you want your house to have a soul and if you strip all indication of life from the house you are in essence stripping its soul away and oftentimes that is what sells the house.  However, that being said…

5.  Declutter.

I cannot stress this last point enough!!!!!!!

We have bought and sold many homes and our homes sell fast.  I am not boasting it’s simply a fact that I pray I have not jinxed myself in exposing.  Our homes have oftentimes sold for asking price and they have all sold FAST.  We have sold a house with a teal wall and personal pictures.  We have sold houses with things that needed fixing on the inspection report.  What we have NEVER done is sold a cluttered home!

I feel the number one thing you can do to sell your home is to declutter it.  Buying a house is very different from taking a home tour.  It requires diving into the bones of a home.  How many closets are there?  How big are the closets?  Does the home have a pantry?  If not, are there enough cabinets to make up for the lack of pantry or can you add a shelving unit to suffice as a food pantry?  How many shelves do the cabinets have and are they adjustable?  Does the house have a coat closet and a linen closet?  Buying a house requires investigating the bones of the house.  Potential buyers will be confirming whether your home will work for their needs.  

Potential buyers will be looking at and in your private spaces…your cabinets, closets, garages, storage buildings, attics…and for many people these are the areas that have experienced the greatest neglect over the years.    

Let’s face it family life gets really busy and sometimes all we can do is stuff our stuff into a drawer, closet, garage, or attic to get to the next thing.  

You need to go through these areas.  Purge anything you do not plan to keep.  Quite simply stated, there is no sense in paying to move things you don’t need or use.  

That being said, you may not wish to get rid of some of your belongings that are at the moment translating as clutter as you may be planning to purchase a larger home.  For this reason, you may want to consider temporarily renting an offsite climate-controlled storage unit.  

For our last move, I took all of our holiday decorations and moved them to an offsite storage unit.  This freed up space in our attic and garage and was an easy decluttering move.  I also packed and moved to said storage unit our table linens, many of the bed linens in our linen closet and just about anything else we were not using on a daily basis.  I moved anything that did not add to the design appeal of our home.  I put my numerous scrapbooks into plastic bins and moved those to the storage unit along with scrapbooking tools and supplies.  I certainly would not be scrapbooking in the middle of showing our home. 

Basically, anything you will not be using and anything that contributes to the look of clutter should be moved.  If you have a spot in your home for these items and they do not look like clutter then by all means keep your stuff in that spot.  What you are trying to avoid is the avalanche when someone opens a closet or cabinet door.  I was recently searching for a home and was looking at a very beautiful home…beautiful on the surface.  I opened an upstairs closet and almost suffered injury from a potential avalanche.  Needless to say, I did not open another closet or cabinet and I did not buy that house!

I have found developing a plan and going room by room is the best way to get to all of my spaces in an efficient manner.  Get ready, this is a process and it will get messy before it gets better.  

I imagine I am the buyer as I go through each area. 

 What do I love about this home?

Why would I buy this home?

Then I try to think of ways to showcase what prompted us to buy our home.  As I finish cleaning, decluttering, and staging each room, I take a moment to snap a few photos and I study those photos.  Similar views will be the first impression a prospective buyer will have of your home.  Oftentimes, “less is more” is a good mantra when preparing your home for the market.

Finally, sit down with your family once your home is ready for the real estate market.  Explain the importance of your move and the difficulty of living in a home that is for sale.  Express the need to minimize the length of this process by getting the house sold sooner rather than later so you can all get back to normal.  It is critical to get everyone on board with this notion.  

Ms. Thibodeaux, I wish you the best of luck with your move.  Please let us know if we can help with the decluttering phase in Baton Rouge or the unpacking in  Houston.  

Warmest regards,

Lisa Clement

Chaos Organizing

Pro Tips:  

• Get a few empty laundry baskets.  When you get those last minute calls, simply throw all the clutter into these baskets and put them in your car.

• Keep extra  trash bags on hand so you can empty all of the trash cans before buyers arrive.  Put the trash out.

• Take family members and pets with you when you leave and by ALL means LEAVE.  Nothing is worse than trying to view a home when the homeowner is present.

• Be game ready at all times!!

Need more tips or help in preparing for the big move?

Give us a call!