A Moving Experience . . . With a Personal Organizer

Some folks repaint every seven years; I move. During one 15-year period I moved nine times. Moving is stressful for everyone, and for a worrywart like me, the anxiety level was a 10. Until I got the life-altering idea to hire an organizer, to help me pare down before packing. Stephanie Shur, personal organizer arrived precisely on time with the book-on-the-head posture my mother always dreamed of for me.

"First we'll do a walk-through," she said with me trailing behind. At her suggestion, we then began working in the space I found most daunting, the guest room, which also served as a repository for the likes of outgrown baby clothes, letters from my high school boyfriend, and shoeboxes filled with photographs.

Stephanie asked for two trash bags: one for throw away, one for give away (Tip #1). Things I wanted to keep went in piles to be distributed to other parts of the house. Never travel to another room without an armload (Tip #2).

At one point I took some towels and vitamins to the bathroom. When Stephanie found me putting the vitamins in the medicine cabinet and weeding out expired bottles, she steered me back to the guest room to finish one thing at a time (Tip #3).

As she was leaving my home on Long Island, I asked if I could hire her to help me unpack in my new home in Washington, D.C. 

One month later. Stephanie and I are looking around my new kitchen, while a neighborhood kid I've employed unwraps dishes, pots, utensils from the stacks of cartons and sets them on counters (Tip #4). Stephanie calculates that pots are most accessible in the cabinet beside the stove and glasses and dishes go above the dishwasher. Rarely used items, like the waffle maker, she places on a high shelf (Tip #5). She designates a small drawer for the dark chocolate and nuts I eat each day at 5 p.m. with a large glass of skim milk, which is how I maintain my weight (oops, errant Diet Tip).

When we finish, we fortify ourselves with yogurt and lemonade. Then we head to the master bedroom. Stephanie arranges the unopened boxes around the perimeter of the room. "It helps create a more relaxed, airy feeling while we work," she tells me (Tip #6). 

Unlike in the kitchen, where we needed to see everything to figure out how to use the cabinet space, in the bedroom, Stephanie opens only one carton at a time, which—as she point out—is less chaotic (Tip #7).  

Working together for 15 hours a day over 4 days, Stephanie and I manage to unpack the entire household for my family of 5. The giveaway items are double the amount I'd parted with before the move, which I accept as what happens after you arrive in a new space (Tip #8). 

Now that our unpacking is done, we get to hang pictures and order a telescopic feather duster and baskets from The Container Store, as rewards for our hard work (Tip #9).

Although Stephanie and I wave good-bye, we're not yet finished. A few days later, she emails to ask how I'm doing with my homework assignment to spend a half hour a few times a week sorting and reducing DVD's, old purses, sneakers accumulated over a decade(Tip #10). 

A few days after that, UPS delivers a box with a pink tool kit inside. There's no note, but I know whom it's from. I write Stephanie to say thanks and how delighted I am that I can now get rid of my former tool kit, which she knows is a jumble of wire, nails and screwdrivers in a cloth tote bag with the point of an awl poking out that I'd hung awkwardly on a hook in the hall closet. 

Then I return to my sorting.

What has moving been like for you? Any unpacking do's or don'ts? Organizing tips? I'd love to hear from you in the comments below.