A Professional Organizer's Favorite Picks

My wife organizes other people's homes for a living, here's what she swears by.

When I tell people that my wife Alex is a professional organizer, there’s always an inquisitive eyebrow raise. This is usually followed by an “oh my gosh, I need her to come to my house,” or “your house must be so organized.” (It’s not exactly “so organized.”) She even once worked for the famously colorful (and annoying) Home Edit, but she’s been doing it all on her own for a while now with her company, Spruce.

Our Brooklyn apartment serves as a testing ground for products and organizing schemes. Though Alex is singularly talented, there’s no organizing system that can survive my creative whims, wardrobe indecision, mundane chaos or general messiness.

First, see what you’ve got already. Think heavy duty shoeboxes, containers of any kind and makeshift drawer dividers. This helps keep cost and waste down. That said, most of her clients need to bring in some reinforcement items to tie it all together. Her go-to resource is Target’s “Brightroom” collection which offers a more approachable price point than the container store. Her most used products include…

Turntables & Lazy Susans:

1. Tall, 2. Short, 3. Medium

“I use these for absolutely everything,” she says. And it’s true — they’ve revolutionized our kitchen cabinets and countertops. I highly recommend these. Just keep the height of the walls in mind for what you plan to put in there.