HANNAH KOZLOWSKI: PROJECT: Rachel Prihoda & Nick Flink

My client Rachel Prihoda had a closet disaster & needed help! Rachel doesn't have a lot of time on her hands, as she is employed full time, is also a college student, and still maintains a social life. She was using her closet as more of a storage space than a secure place for her wardrobe. She was on an extremely small budget & wanted the organization done in a matter of hours. She also wanted something that was easy for her & also for her boyfriend to maintain.

The first thing Rachel & I started to do was go though her things & decide what she needed to PUT AWAY, KEEP, PASS ON, FIX, or TOSS.

PUT AWAY things are all the random things that do not belong where you found them. (I.E the vacuum cleaner and the fan in the bedroom closet) Also in this category is other people's clothing or belongings that you may have borrowed or used and they need to be returned to the owner.

KEEP* is all the stuff you want, need, & most importantly things you are going to use.

PASS ON is stuff that will go to charity, like a goodwill store or a St. Vincent De Paul. Pretty much anything that is too good to toss, but you don't need it anymore.

FIX is only for clothing items that are worth the repair. Think, 8 dollars at your dry cleaners. If it has been broke for a year already and you've made do with out, toss it.

TOSS is just that, a toss bin, and it should exit the house immediately after the purge, as you might start "second guessing the garbage!"

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*KEEP as can be expected you run into items that you can't decide if you want to keep or pass on. "It's so cute though, I love pink, I just don't where pink because it's not a good color on me, but maybe I'll start wearing it?" Does this sound familiar? Here's how to conquer that problem, in the picture above you will see there are orange tags on Rachel's hangers. These orange tags were for those items that she was unsure about. As you wear the items you can take off the tag and throw it away, and after 2-6 months (depending on how many you have) the remaining tagged clothing is donated to charity. VOILA!

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As you will see in these pictures, Rachel has a fan and a vacuum cleaner stored in her closet, and an assortment of random things that also do not belong on the bottom of her closet. These items got an immediate and permanent home else where.Rachel was not the only one contributing to this disorganizing. Her boyfriend Nick also helping in the demise of this marvelous walk in closet that so many would envy. ( Including me!) Nick's side was going to be a little trickier though, due to the fact that he was not too thrilled about the idea of this. He also was insistent that we could not throw out, or give anything away. He had overwhelming dresser drawers and a lot of empty space on the top bar of his side of the closet. First, we hung up all of his shirts. Color coordinating as we did on Rachel's side. ( This makes it look more organized, not to mention, you can also find what your looking for more easily.) We also had to tackle the common area shelving, which had been taken over by the both of them.

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