I’m not a big fan of exercise so what I tend to do is ignore the feeling that I need to do exercise and hope that the feeling goes away eventually.
However, being in the older age range bracket, my doctor says I need to exercise. Bah-humbug, I say to myself.
I know, some people love to exercise. Maybe you’re one of them? If so, listen up anyway because you still might like what I have to say.
So, what I’d like to introduce you to is “organizing fitness”. It involves a bit of bending, some stretching, and possibly a little lifting. Essentially though, it involves moving the body.
Take, for example, re-organizing your closet. In this exercise, you will be moving your arms upwards toward the clothes rod (stretching); you would also need to bend over to pick things up off the floor (bending); and the body would need to move from the closet to the area where discarded clothing goes (moving body).
Do that for 15-20 minutes and you’ve got a nice workout happening.
Recently, I decided to do some organizing fitness with the books on my bookshelf. They just seemed to be getting clogged up with too many books and I wanted to insert some display stuff on the shelves too.
I put on my yoga pants and a long-sleeved tee-shirt (it’s colder weather right now), and I proceeded to head over to the bookshelf.
I reached up to the books on the upper shelves and started looking them over. I pulled out any books that didn’t give me love anymore and placed them on a cart table I placed nearby.
When I got to the lower shelves, instead of sitting on the floor, I thought I should bend over to sort through them to give me some bending time in this fitness slot.
By the time I was finished, I had a 30 minute workout that included stretching, bending, lifting books, and moving my body. I was proud of myself. And, I had a little over a dozen books to donate to my local library.
Funny thing is, I may not be getting on a treadmill or jogging or taking long walks and all that sort of thing, but I’m staying fit while staying organized!
If you’re not happy with an area of your home, whether it’s an accumulation of clutter or just has a worn out feeling, it’s time to put a little pizzazz in your space.
To be an artist in the design of your home spaces, you really don’t need classes to teach you artist techniques. You just need a little incentive, some ideas from designs you like, and a heaping scoop of imagination to make a room transformation.
That’s that “recipe” to be your very own amateur home designer. And, like anyone creating anything, those ingredients will help you shape your environment into any artistic setting you like.
You can have fun with colors, texture,
shapes, and placement of items in the room. You can add types of
decorative pieces that make you feel good. Essentially, you can be
the Michelangelo of your space.
Like a painting or sculpture or
anything artistic, you start shaping your vision into something that
gives you pleasure in the end. By that I mean, if it’s nice to look
at when you’re done, it should give you pleasure.
There may be some things that just have
to stay for the time being, even if it doesn’t bring us much joy
anymore. But don’t let that stop you from getting creative in the
room. For instance, if you have an old sofa that you just afford to
replace yet, make (or buy) a cover for it and toss some new throw
pillows on it.
Now, the thing that doesn’t belong in our decorated environment is clutter. It isn’t always tossed items in the room that cause a cluttered room. It can be too many collections of things without a displayed containment space for them can be too much for the room.
The “trick” there is grouping your collection in some sort of display shelf or framed shelf.
Too much furniture for a space can also
give a cluttered appearance. Actually, too much of anything in an
area is most likely, well, too much.
Here’s a good way to get started: Try taking photos of your room before you start and look them over carefully. Make a note of anything you don’t like about the room, and then some plans on what you can do to fix that. By this time, you’ve pretty much began your artistic endeavor by just looking at something and envisioning it being better for you.
Have fun, and leave comment with photos
of what you’ve done!
Whenever I do a garage, yard, moving or estate sale, the results are typically pretty darn good. In comparison with other sales I’ve seen, I can understand and appreciate what goes into making a sale successful, and I see what can make it a failure.
Therefore, to get maximum results from
your sale, I’ve concluded that there are particular and essential
elements that need to be in place to make it successful.
Before I get into that, a good question
to ask yourself is, “Do I just want to get rid of stuff or do I
want to make as much money as I can selling stuff?”
That goal question will help determine
how you approach your sale. If your goal is both – to get rid of
stuff and make lots of money doing it – than that’s okay too.
However it’s important to decide which goal is MORE important.
Ideally, when the goal is to clear out
your stuff, then what’s left over after the sale is finished should
be donated and not kept around. You’ll want to psych yourself up for
that. Just let it go!
Okay, so now let’s get into what makes
a sale successful.
Price to sell
That piece of furniture you purchased for $1000 or more, if you
want it gone, sell it at a very low price (practically a giveaway
price). If you do, it goes fast. If you over price, it may just sit
there all day.
This, of course, is with the goal of getting rid of stuff as the
priority over making as much money as you can for your stuff.
Price everything
Get dollar store price stickers and put a price on every single
item. The thing I dislike the most at sales is not seeing price tags
on items I’m interested in and having to ask someone “How much?”
You can however make signage to price groups of items (CDs, DVDs,
books, albums, jewelry, clothing).
For example: softcover books $2, hardcover $4, paperback $.50 and
for clothing, blouses $5; pants $4; tee-shirts $2; etc.)
Display items in attractive fashion.
Groupings of like items is key. Take a look at the end of this
article for typical categories of stuff many people have around.
Kitchenware gets grouped on a table (or counter or shelving) like
retail store displays. Decor pieces grouped on another display spot.
And so forth and so on.
Avoid creating a cluttered table, like piling stuff on it.
Instead, display them so that each item can be seen easily.
Another thing to consider for an indoor sale is to have all the
display tables in areas where helpers can supervise.
My last word of advice on displaying stuff is to display items for
sale only on display tables, NOT on furniture pieces you’re selling
(unless it’s a table lamp or one décor piece).
Allow pathways for shoppers
Whether your sale is in the garage and partly outside or if it’s
an indoor sale, try to ensure that tables and displays allow shoppers
to browse without bumping into each other or worse, not allowing
other people to view what’s on the tables because they can’t get to
it.
Take Photos
After you have displayed stuff, take
pictures of the displays and of the key furniture items you’re
selling. These photos are used for your online ads to entice people
to come to your sale.
When shoppers see stuff they want,
they will make a point of coming to your sale, even if it’s not close
to them.
Post online ads
There are various online garage sale
sites where you can post your sale for free. If you want to be
featured with good placement, some sites offer a low fee to get your
ad featured. Here are some places to post your ads:
Craigslist
GSALR.com
garagesales.com
garagesalefinder.com
garagesalestracker.com
yardsales.net
yardsalesearch.com
Facebook Marketplace
estatesale.com – for esate sale
listings only
Keep your ad simple, but enticing.
Lure them in with photos. I recommend posting the ads 5 days before
the sale.
Post neighborhood signs
You can purchase pre-made garage sale
signs or make your own (cheaper). I use bright neon-colored poster
papers.
Keep the information brief and don’t
clutter up the sign. People can’t read it all when driving by, so
keep it short. Include only vital information like “Garage Sale –
Sat. (the date) – (street address).
Drive around with packing tape to post
your sign up around neighboring street corners and busy street
intersections nearby. At a stop sign, post one facing cars going in
that direction, and across the street for cars going in the other
direction.
Have starting cash
You don’t need a lot of cash, but
you’ll need some on hand before you open your sale. I recommend
having $20-25 in ones; $15 in fives; $20 in tens. You’ll be surprised
how your first shopper will give you a $20 bill for a $2 item at the
beginning of your sale!
Make guiding signage
A guiding sign would be something like, “Patio furniture for
sale in backyard” or “Browse our collection of albums” or
“Please pay cashier at table only”.
These are optional and not necessary, but it can be helpful if the
sale is spread out over various areas.
Draw attention to sale outside
Create a large poster with a poster board that says, “Garage
Sale Here Today”. Place that outside in front of the house and
visible to drive-by people. You can even have balloons around the
sign or the house to draw attention to your sale.
Set sale hours
Some shoppers who have seen the ads or neighborhood signs will
arrive early before you’re ready to open the sale. I recommend not
allowing them to shop before you’re completely set up and ready.
If you’re still bringing things out, it is distracting to have
shoppers start going through stuff because it isn’t easy to keep an
eye on them while they look around. So let them line up and wait
outside.
By the way, most sales are better to run one day, on Saturday. On
Sundays, you’ll find many people going to Church, so you’ll miss out
on Church-going shoppers until late morning.
Stay alert
There are people who will try to steal at garage sales. Some are
“professional” thieves who go to garage sales to steal whatever
they can. Sometimes they come in small groups, but you can’t
necessarily tell that they are with a group. While one is distracting
you with several items to buy or bargaining with the prices, the
others in their group will walk off with stuff.
That is why I recommend having helpers around to keep an eye on
shoppers while you’re busy handling people who are buying stuff and
dealing with money.
At the beginning of the sale, if lots of people have been waiting
to enter the sale, you might consider only allowing a certain number
of people in at a time. Too many people coming in all at once can
spell disaster unless you have enough helpers to handle the crowds,
which brings me to this next point …
Have enough helpers and a cashier table
If your sale is in the garage and
driveway, or a yard sale where everything is out front, you probably
only need yourself and one helper.
On the other hand, if your sale is
indoors, it’s a good idea to assign a helper to certain areas,
especially where display tables are.
For an indoor moving sale where you
might have boxed up items to move with you, I recommend putting those
in a room (or garage) where you won’t allow people to go. You can
make a sign, “Do not enter” on rooms where you don’t want people
to be.
When you have a 2-story home, only
leave furniture items for sale upstairs so you don’t have to be
concerned about people stealing stuff in areas not supervised by your
helpers.
Having a table for the cashier
near the exit is a great way to direct people who are buying stuff.
It’s a good idea for only one person to take in the cash, and not
allow people to give money to helpers. The reason is, if they paid a
helper and are still walking around shopping, it’s hard to know who
paid for what. And having the table near the exit is also a way to
avoid theft from people who walk out without paying for your stuff.
Be friendly and inviting
I believe that the reason people
like my sales is because me and my helpers are always
customer-oriented and greet people with a smile. That initial
greeting welcomes the shopper and makes them feel more comfortable
looking around. It also gives them a nice shopping experience.
Negotiate
Don’t be offended at low price
offers. Garage-salers are going to your sale for a bargain, and will
usually try to bargain with you to get a deal.
If the time of day is still
early from when you opened, consider the offers and by mid day, I
recommend that you accept whatever offers come your way. In other
words, be more willing to bring your price down on what’s left.
IN SUMMARY
Wow, this article turned out a
lot longer than I planned! So, I shall wrap this up now.
I must say, the information I’ve
provided here has turned into a very comprehensive guide to holding a
successful garage sale (or whatever type of sale you’re having).
Lucky you!
It may seem like a lot goes into
preparing and holding a sale, and there is, I won’t lie.
It’s just not as easy as
gathering up some of your stuff, throwing it on tables, and hoping
you get people to your sale. It takes planning and preparation. Plain
and simple.
However, it’s worth it. Getting
rid of stuff and making some money doing that has its rewards.
So go ahead and use some of your
profits from the sale and treat yourself (and family) to a nice
dinner out!
COMMON CATEGORIES OF MERCHANDISE
Furniture
Home furnishings (throw pillows, curtains, rugs, lamps)
Home decor
Collectibles
Kitchen dish ware, small appliances, pots/pans, silverware,
glassware, bowls
Walk into a space that doesn’t make you feel good in it, and there’s something wrong with that space.
On the other hand, walk into a space that uplifts you and I can say with full certainty that there’s everything right about that space.
A pleasant space affects our well being
in the way that a child or loved one (or even a pet) gives out loving
kisses that results in our feeling of joy and happiness. It’s just a
“feel good” feeling overall.
Yet, a hostile space makes us feel
uncomfortable or sad or frightened or angry or in despair. A hostile
space always creates a negative feeling, no matter what that negative
feeling may be.
Sometimes we can escape a hostile area
as swiftly as we entered it, and sometimes we are left stuck in it
for a certain period of time.
What’s a hostile area, you ask? Well,
let’s look at a homeless person’s encampment – usually cluttered
with unattractive items stacked like a pile of garbage thrown on the
ground. You probably don’t feel so good in that area, right? So
essentially, if you’re not feeling so great, it’s considered hostile
toward your well being.
Clutter isn’t pretty. I’d have to say
it’s hostile to our spiritual well being. A cluttered environment is
going to drive us down unless we sweep it out of existence.
If the space is cluttered, it’s an
indication that we’ve been in a bit of a slump (spiritually or
otherwise). It’s a viscous circle because the area is making us feel
bad, yet the space got that way when we were not feeling so chipper.
Simply put, our environment can make us
feel good, or it can make us feel bad. And our own space is usually a
reflection of how we’re feeling most of the time.
If we start feeling better about life
and things in general and then we walk back into the bad environment
we had created while we weren’t feeling so great, we’re likely to
head back into a slump.
This is where we need to pull ourselves
up and get our environment in good shape first and foremost, no
matter what it takes.
A happy environment will smile at us. And that is just good for the soul.
Watch my latest video where I give some solutions to make your environment a happy one.
Nowadays most people find themselves too busy to keep up with keeping their home organized.
And things happen when home affairs get neglected – Papers get accumulated in places where they shouldn’t be; clothes closets get stuffed with too many clothes; kitchen cupboards become a nightmare; bills fall through the cracks unpaid … and so forth and so on.
When the home has accumulated enough clutter, it can result in unbearable living conditions. But where do you start when the home is now an overwhelming mess?
DIY Organizing
You can, of course, employ DIY (Do It Yourself) home organizing. Maybe you have books on the subject? Maybe you’ve watched past TV shows like Clean House, Clean Sweep, Mission Organization, Neat, or the present show Tidying Up With Marie Kondo to help you figure out organizing techniques?
Yet if you’ve watched any of those shows and possess any of those organizing books but still find yourself not getting organized, I recommend calling a Professional Organizer for the help you need to get the job done.
Professional Organizing
Calling for help is like an investment in yourself. It’s hard to put a price tag on having peace of mind, feeling happy in your home environment, or accomplishing what you couldn’t do yourself.
You can expect professional rates for this kind of professional organizing assistance. But again, what’s that worth in terms of its value to you?
When you have a legal problem, you call a lawyer. When you need help with taxes, you might hire an accountant. If you have a clogged drain, you probably call a plumber.
There are many professionals you might hire in the course of life who have the expertise to get the job done that you can’t. And the cost on getting the help you need is priceless when it comes to your well being.
What Does a Professional Organizer Do Exactly?
Similar to what you may have seen on TV or read in books, the organizing expert first accesses what is going on in the space. With a simple walk-through the Organizer can observe where clutter has accumulated, what issues reside in closets and cabinets, and any problems that make it difficult to be organized.
The job then moves onto sorting an area of a problem room or space and, with the client’s input, make decisions on any items that can be donated or trashed. The things left are then organized into “homes” (or designated places) for those items, or worked into a system (like a paper flow system).
When one room or space is finished, the Organizer sorts another problem room or space until the entire home is cleared of clutter or organization issues.
Your Role With A Professional Organizer
The primary role a client has with an Organizer is to make decisions on items to get rid of.
That’s it. Really. Seriously.
The client doesn’t have to prepare for the Organizer to come start, nor expected to do any of the organizing work. As a matter of fact, it is best NOT to try and clean up any mess before the Organizer comes or they may not be able to find out the underlying problems and create better foundations to staying organized.
Got lots of photo prints? Many people do, especially in the days when we had photos developed.
Well, a mother of a friend of mine decided it was time to share all her accumulated photos with the entire family. Organizing a photo collection was the first part of this hefty project, so she organized them into large zip-lock Hefty storage baggies for each member of the family, and dumped every photo and keepsake item into the appropriate baggie.
This was a large family with lots of grown kids and their family and cousins and aunts and uncles and so forth. So the collection of photos was mind-boggling. Pictured below is just one box of this collection!
My friend said, “Hey mom, it’s the digital age. Why don’t we scan all the photos too?”
This was a brilliant idea because everyone in the family would also have digital photos. And, although the task was a daunting one at first due to the number of baggies and photos, it actually wasn’t so bad once the task was started.
The first order of business for this project was to get a photo scanner appropriate for this type of job. So my friend decided that a Epson V550 Photo scanner would be the machine to make this project go faster, so she purchased one.
She could put several photos on the glass and the scanner would scan each one. Not only that, but she could scan entire pages from a photo album.
The scanned photos went into the “Pictures” folder on her computer. Within 5 hours (over the course of a few days spending less than a couple hours at a time) she had over 600 photos scanned. The job was only half done, but progress was being made!
Since her computer could only hold so much, the time came when she had to move the scanned photos to a WD Passport portable hard drive. This freed up the hard drive space in her computer to allow her to continue scanning more photos.
Framed photos were scanned, developed rolls of camera photos were scanned, photo album pages were scanned. They all went into the digital space in perfect resolution.
She didn’t spend time renaming the photos because that adds a lot more time to the project. So it’s a good idea to organize the photos into named folders.
The beauty of this project is that now all the family photos can be shared among the family for years to come. And those memories will always be there to find – a lot easier than sifting through boxes and packets of photos, or even photo albums to find a photo memory.
Share your thoughts about organizing a photo collection!
The DISORGANIZED ZONE is an Original Sci-Fi Comedy Series produced, written and directed by Cyndi Seidler (your Organizing Lady! and show Creator) and Judy Norton (of “The Waltons”), now airing on Vulcan TV – streaming as Video On Demand.
Judy Norton plays “The Organizer” in this series who magically appears in people’s disorganized lives to help guide them out of their disorganized zone. And, believe it or not, the stories are based on real-life stories, only with a sci-fi twist (as a parody of The Twilight Zone), and I’m sure that most of us will most certainly relate!
You can follow the series updates and watch the trailers at any of these sites:
Cyndi Seidler gets together once again with actress / photographer Denice Duff in this segment of Organizing Stuff video series to help her organize her makeup.
In a previous segment, Denice showed her home in “Decorative Organization” and revealed an area in her bathroom that she could use a little help with – her makeup. So Cyndi returned to work out a better solution for that.
As a follow-up piece to the ORGANIZING STUFF – DECORATIVE ORGANIZATION video segment, I wanted to share some of my own favorite decorative tchotchkes (pronounced “choch-kas”, meaning trinkets) that provide organizing solutions in my own home (and the use of the word tchotchkes came from that segment!).
So, I walked around a snapped photos of things around my home I thought added decor and doubling as a dual purpose to organize stuff in some sort of home decor way – including the inside of cabinets. And, although some of it isn’t necessarily “decorative” in the sense of decor, it makes the space look good (in my “personal-style-opinion”, of course!).
Without further ado, take a peak inside my place (and feel free to Pin on Pinterest!).
In this segment of Organizing Stuff, Cyndi Seidler walks through the home of Denice Duff to check out her decorative organization style. Denice shows her studio, dining room, kitchen and bathroom areas.
Watch Video:
You’ll see a transformed garage made into a photography studio. Although it’s a working studio where she brings clients, the space still contains storage – only stylish storage.
Her dining room area once had a cluttered wall filled with her young daughter’s drawings and, after her daughter grew up, she cleared the wall, painted it, put shelving on it and placed select framed photos on the shelves and walls.
The kitchen was another transformation Denice did as her other remodeling project. She painted the dark wood cabinets and walls to white and created a contrast of black chalkboard paint on the upper wall above the cabinets. On the chalkboard areas surrounding the perimeter of the kitchen were some of her favorite phrases – in Italian!
And lastly was her organized, yet decorative bathroom. Stay tuned for a future segment where we do some decorative organizing for Denice’s counter-top makeup!
