Follow me on my KonMari Journey with Heywood Park Collective
Updated- See the result of the bookshelves!
Many of you, if not all, have seen or heard about Marie Kondo’s new Netflix series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. A professional organizer with a lifelong love of tidying spaces and reducing clutter. Her books and now her show have many of us obsessed discovering what “sparks joy”. People inspired by her method of tidying have been lining up at donation centers across the country, to drop off tons of household goods, clothing, books that no longer spark joy for them.
I always aim to be tidy, but periods of extreme laziness, procrastination, and overwhelm can keep it from happening. Marie Kondo’s system of evaluating “stuff” and tidying up makes a lot of sense in our house. With one kid in college and one kid graduating from high school next year, my husband and I are ready to take charge of our physical stuff and downsize. No more kid toys to store, and everything we are looking at around us suddenly feels a little bit “heavier” if we have no real use or purpose for it.
But how to apply the KonMari Method in my studio?
Some of you may remember, this room (where I spend many hours a week) is on one side of our partially finished basement. I can tell you that as of this moment, its not an inspiring place to be. A major cleanup usually happens once a year, but it never goes deep enough. There just aren’t enough systems in place that make tidying easy. There is no closed storage except the cabinets and shelving I’ve set up (thank you IKEA). Many quilting rulers, tons of papers, and lots of things deemed “special” at one point. A lot of it matters, but not all of it. Many things don’t have a real, permanent home.
The thought of organizing it all myself is overwhelming. It makes me immediately want to go take a nap. Or stress eat.
I decided that I need some help. I’ve never used the services of a professional organizer before, but I decided to reach out to Tricia Fidler of Heywood Park Collective. Tricia, a gold certified KonMari expert, was a consultant on Marie’s Netflix series and the families on the show.
We talked on the phone and immediately hit it off. We are in different states (she’s in California, I’m in Washington), but decided that it would work remotely. Hello video calls and virtual studio tours! I’m so excited to have her guidance!
bookshelves before (on a clean day, they are usually much worse)
Maybe you are confused about using this method to tidy your creative space too? Hopefully, we’ll all gain some insight as I document this process.
An older, but accurate tour of my studio (when its as clean as I can get it!) can be found on this page, scroll down to the bottom.
Follow along with the hashtag #wisecraftkonmari to see every step of the process! Wish me luck!
I’ll post the result in a couple of days!