Amazing Spaces Client Case Study /// March 2021 By Renee Ory
Amazing Spaces takes a deep dive into the details of a job recently completed by the team. Founder, lead designer, and 337 contributor, Renée Ory, shares the behind-the-scenes brilliance that leads to a successful organization project, and how small changes can make big differences in a space. (To maintain client confidentiality, the client’s name has been changed.) Melissa contacted Amazing Spaces because she was overwhelmed by her entire home. She felt stagnant and self-conscious of the amount of clutter she accumulated and was too embarrassed to take up offers of help from family and friends. She wanted to use professionals who could maintain a judgement-free zone, and that’s what we gave her. Our jobs always begin with a free initial consultation. We prefer to have physical access to the space but can complete this consultation via telephone with pictures, or via facetime. We determined that we could transform Melissa’s home in two days with a full team. Melissa worked with Renée to identify trouble areas and any goals Melissa had for her space. We ultimately decided to use a zone approach to help delineate her space and organize her collections of seasonal décor, family photos, clothing, and transitional home décor.
This job was made easier by the number of storage solutions available in Melissa’s home. She had four total closets available indoors, with an additional storage closet in the garage, but none were utilized efficiently. Every interior surface was filled with clothing, and the entire garage was filled with outdoor items. We tackled the interior closets by clearing every piece of clothing out, and helped Melissa assess which were no longer wanted, which were odd sizes that she would like to store for later, and which were items she was currently wearing. Once we sifted through her clothing, she had a much better idea of what her usable wardrobe consisted of, could easily locate transitional items, and no longer had to look at any unwanted pieces. This opened up two closets to use for storage of climate-controlled items. We dedicated one closet to her beautiful seasonal décor, and the other to home décor she rotated throughout the year. On all our jobs, we expand the mess before we can make it smaller. This is a necessary step that serves two purposes: logging an accurate inventory of items in the home, and emptying potential storage spaces. Without this step, items are often stored inefficiently. We can identify which spaces would best serve each zone with the least amount of modification to actual spaces in the home. If we have a closet with shelving available
to use, then the purchase of additional shelving to outfit another space is no longer necessary, which saves our clients time and money. This was the case with Melissa’s interior closets: they provided great spaces to store so many items. We purchased storage baskets to use in the garage and designated this space for non-climate controlled seasonal items. Each of these bins were labeled to identify which items needed to be returned to that bin after their use, and the shelves themselves were labeled so that each bin had a home. One of Melissa’s favorite spots is her new wreath wall in the garage. We hung her seasonal wreaths on an empty garage wall to free up additional shelving storage, to better preserve the life of her wreaths by keeping them fluffed, and to make it easier to identify each wreath visually. Melissa remained on site during this job. It is not necessary for the client to do so, but it does make the process more efficient because any questions can be answered instantly. She admitted to feeling nervous and timid before the crew arrived. Within thirty minutes of having everyone on site and working together, she said she was having fun and felt at ease. She commented multiple times that she felt safe in discussing her items because she did not
