Getting Organized with Jeffrey Phillips
Sharing the horrifying before photos of getting organized in the studio with our friend and professional organizer, Jeffrey Phillips!
If I had a custom shirt made for wearing around the studio, it would be super colorful and say “Please save me from myself” written on the back.
Not only is that extremely accurate and slightly embarrassing, but so are the before photos of the studio that I’m about to grace you with.
This is where my friend Jeffrey comes in! He’s the single chicest organizing guru that I know. We met a few years ago at a conference in Boston. And I’ve been scheming our collab ever since.
He worked with us to get a game plan. This all would entail purging, installing new Ikea storage systems and combing through all of our things.
He and his assistant traveled to our studio from NYC back in November when I was still hugely pregnant. So I did a lot of watching and very little lifting.
I did have several heart palpitations seeing the mess get even WORSE before it got better during the sifting and sorting process.
However, there are few things as satisfying as having a color-coordinated balloon closet afterward.
To make the process even more exciting, we were putting a lot of the newly organized cubbies together for a recent feature in Good Housekeeping. (Did any of you see it in the March issue? it was a whole 7 pages, pinch me!).
Before I share too many of the satisfying after photos, here are the horrifying before photos of getting organized. Plus, the run-down on what organizing supplies Jeffrey chose for us.
Before we started building out the new portion of the studio to expand into, this one closet was our ONLY storage closet. Which meant anything and everything got shoved into and as long as the door closed, I was happy.
We have quite a lot of plain white Ikea storage along the walls of the studio. Unfortunately, we also just shoved random things into and hoped the doors closed…
The Horrifying Before Photos of Getting Organized
Then, in a mad dash before our holiday charity event in the studio and house renovations, I began shoving alllll the things from our house and studio that needed to be cleared out into the new portion of the studio space.
So it started looking like this even though it was brand new…
Jared also got the honor of building 414913850 pieces of Ikea furniture for the new storage. Which ironically he really loves to do.
I, on the other hand, would rather run 7 marathons than build a piece of furniture with no words in the instructions.
Nonetheless, we got it all built and these were the key pieces that we used for making it all happen —
Our Studio Organization Sources
Ikea PAX system // brass frame // pink chair // Ikea Alex drawer unit // storage box with lid // adjustable drawer organizer // rectangle POP container // square POP container // Ikea Besta storage unit // Ikea Knodd bins with lids // Ikea Moppe storage chest // Ikea Norden folding table // 3 – drawer craft storage system // spray bottle hanger // Ikea EKET wall mounted units // 3 – piece supply cases // OXO turntable // Ikea EKET storage combination // letter tray // picture ledge // colorful bundling straps // cabinet light // wood wall shelf // under Commandink cabinet caddy // display ledges // Command wire toggle hooks // Iris clear stack & pull box
Organizing Ideas For Your Little Things
So don’t go to sleep with hoarding nightmares! Here are a few sneak peeks of how Jeffrey made some sense of the chaos. I’ll share the full reveal soon!
I have a brand new obsession with the OXO turntables. I immediately bought three more to use under my sink and in our fridge at home after he transformed the madness under our sink into this (above)!
Also, I have no idea how I didn’t know about Command spray bottle hangers before now, but here we are. He used the Iris clear stack & pull boxes for organizing all of our little food styling knick knacks.
And it makes my heart happy just to look at this photo!
I’ll be sharing the full organized reveal soon and all have I to say is: color-coded balloon closet. Closet of my dreams, you guys!
A huge thank you to Ikea, Command, Iris, and OXO for providing items for me to get my life back together!
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