Home

Reasons Professional Home Organizers in Calgary are Vital

You will know that you need a professional organizer if you, for the third time this week, cannot find your briefcase, or your keys, or your baby’s favorite doll. Calgary is like any other town: we rush between work, kids’ school, shopping, dry-cleaning, mother-in-law visits, hairdresser’s appointment etc. The list is long and organizing your closet and your whole home if you are to be honest, is very low on your list of priorities. But, do not despair. There is help at hand. Professional organizers are now part of the mainstream help to busy families, and even businesses. They help with downsizing, relocating, home staging and simplifying our lives in general.

Why do you need a professional organizer?

Stress is a killer. Living with clutter and spending hours of your time looking for things, swamped by stuff, unable to function properly, does not make sense. We tend to surround ourselves with things, which often lose their appeal shortly after being purchased. Organizing your home is much more than sorting things and putting them in a right box: it might be just the beginning of organizing your life. We need an objective eye to help us sort between what we really need and what is just a clutter.

What do home organizers do?

Professional, well-trained and experienced organizers will review your home or an office and they will ask you to focus on what is bothering you the most. Whether it is your home office with thousands of papers littering the floor, or a garage, with a mountain of boxes which lost their origin ages ago, or your bedroom closet, which cannot get closed any more with clothes spilling out. With an objective eye, they will help you sort out things you really need to keep and those that should be given to someone who will make better use of them. Getting rid of junk is an inevitable and the most important first stage of this process. Of course, what is junk to one person is a treasure to another. You will have to do most of the work: when sorting out memorabilia, for example, sound advice of professionals is to keep one or two object which represent a certain period in your life, or a special event, and give away the rest.  Clothes are even easier: the rule of thumb is: if you have not worn something in a year, the chance is you will never wear it again. Don’t even think of keeping it until it becomes fashionable again.

What happens afterwards?

Professional organizers will help you de-clutter and sort your things in a meaningful way. It will often involve purchasing containers, boxes, baskets, closet dividers and similar. But, you have to make the commitment to the newly obtained order: everything should have its space and once the things cannot fit any more, it is time to purge. Once you get used to it, you will have fun. After all, you are one of thousands of people in Calgary enjoying the fruits of labor of one of the qualified professional organizers. What happens to the clutter? They go to one of many deserving charities. The most difficult task for you will be to resist all those wonderful garage sales that crop up every spring in various Calgary neighborhoods.

Professional Home organizer – Why You Should Need It

Professional home organizing was for a long time on the same level as home staging, a part of the professional services for real estate dealers and brokers. Home owners took care of their own homes, or lived in the mess, depending on their natures, time available and tolerance level for chaos.

Since so many women now work, they are learning to delegate many household chores, such as cleaning, window washing, dog walking, baby sitting, and,  the latest, home organizing.

Having your home professionally organized can make such a big difference in your quality of life that the reasonable pricing fully justifies it. Time is becoming a commodity and spending time looking for things in a mess is something so many of us learned to live with, but can poorly afford.

Keeping things organized, whether it is in your home or in the office, does not come naturally to everyone. Some people are neat by nature and start sorting things out in their home while still very small, only to continue in their adulthood. Others, the majority in fact, muddle through, and in combination with over-consumption and accumulation of useless stuff, quickly turn their homes, or offices, into a jumble of unsorted things.

Professional home organizers start with evaluating our way of life, priorities, home patterns and habits. They let us know how to get rid of unneeded things and how to figure out what is needed and what is not. They show us how to separate things we use every day from those we use seasonally or on occasion. They teach us how to color-code storage and how to get into a habit of putting things in their proper place every time. They do all those things, but mainly as an advice. They cannot make us change our habits, only to show us how would things look like if we do.

You might want to hire professional home organizers to take care of your entire home, or just one room that drives you crazy. If you are working from home, your livelihood depends on keeping things in order and knowing every second where everything is. Wasting hours looking for things is simply not an option.

Sorting out garages or attics is another good place to get help for. Professional home organizers will help you recover all that space that has been lost to you due to the mountain of accumulated junk. If you do not know what is there, and did not need any of it for years, it is fair bet that you do not need it. Professional organizers will even get rid of it for you, but inviting one of local charities to cart it all off.

The price range from $30 to $150 per hour for a reputable home organizer is not outrageous, considering that it is a one-shot deal, or at least you hope it is. The benefits can be enormous. Just imagine the level of stress going down if you know where everything is and can get it with a movement of one hand. You will finally be able to invite your mother-in-law for a visit, after your guest room has been emptied of all the junk and again resembles human habitation.

If you live in Calgary, don’t let the clutter drive you crazy. Visit, Home Staging Calgary for an evaluation and let them save you from forever looking for your car keys or your tax papers. They are worth every penny.

Guide to Choosing the Right Home Stagers in Calgary

Paying for a home stager to prepare your home for sale is an expense that will pay off many times over. The reports say that homes that are staged by professionals sell twice as fast as those not treated, and for almost 17 percent more. There are many reasons for this, but it mostly has to do with the professional’s objective eye of what sells, what are current trends and what are the best points of your home.

We all remember house hunting and instantly trying to place ourselves and our furniture in a home we were visiting. Everyone is going through the same fantasy, but for some reason we are not able to do this for our own home. The reason is probably that our home is for us a collection of memories, not a market product. We cannot objectify it sufficiently, so it is much better to let the strangers, with professional training and experience, to do the job.

How to recognize good home stager

Home stagers learn their trade by experience. There are no schools to teach them to simplify a home, or to make it more attractive to the largest number of clients, or to recognize the full potential of a home. So, don’t look for diplomas. Look for pictures of homes they did for other people. If you like what you see, give them a call?

Good home stagers will have a large list of former clients. Ask for their numbers and give them a call. People who were happy with the stagers’ job will be more than happy to talk to you.

If the home stager does not ask for the payment for the first visit, ask yourself: who can afford to spend hours of doing what is essentially their job, without being paid. Probably people desperate for their first job! True professionals value their time and know that what they have to offer is good and will benefit you. For that, you will have to pay, and don’t resent it. It is a sign of professionalism and that is what you are looking for.

What about furniture?

You might love your furniture, but you can take it with you. Your home that is ready for sale needs to look like a place everyone would like to live in, not only you. That often means new, more modern, simpler furniture. Sometimes it is necessary to bring in few luxury pieces to show off the architecture of the house. Good home stagers have their own collection of furniture to use for different staging situations, or they have access to affordable selection from a reputable furniture dealer. This is priceless service and could make difference between your home being sold as an upscale property or just a collection of rooms.

What else can home stagers do for you?

Browsing through interior decoration magazines, you often dream of owning some of the features homes, but would not know how to start, or think you could not afford them. Home stagers can adapt your existing home to be as close to your dream, with a few changes and additions that you would not even think of.

Home stagers can even change your home’s curb appeal, but redoing your front garden, or adding few hard cape pieces. They have access to reputable and imaginative craftsmen that would do much better job than you would think possible.

Some professional home stagers practice the art of feng shuei and are able to rearrange your furniture, add or remove pieces of furniture, change colors or art pieces to make your home much more livable and comfortable, although you would not be able to say why exactly.

If you live in Calgary, don’t miss checking the website of the Unique Home Stagers, for the full portfolio of their projects.