I just discovered a great resource for recycling computers and electronics -- eAsset Solutions! We here at A Sorted Affair try very hard to be environmentally aware and make sure things like paint, electronics, cell phones and computers are disposed of properly and recycled whenever possible. So during my donation run one day, I called one of our organizers and had her do an online search and she found eAssetSolutions.

Here’s the BEST part: they are in Falls Church, Virginia, open Monday - Friday 10-5 and accept most electronics FREE! I was a little skeptical until I went and yes, they took everything I brought for free. They also will (if you haven’t already) wipe the drives and all personal information (even from cell phones). Check out their website, www.eAssetSolutions.com

Something most all of us can relate to… the basement space that sometimes doesn’t get used to its capacity. We recently had a client that in addition to other areas of her house, wanted to reclaim the basement area for her family. It’s a great finished space, separated by the stairway that goes down into it…a built in divider creating individual spaces which can be used for different purposes. She already had the makings for a playroom and on the other side a family/exercise space but over the last few years the family side became more of a storage room. She had a great storage/utility room with shelves (we added a few) so any items that needed to be stored had a place to go. All we had to do (if it was really that simple, right?) was some sorting and purging to get the spaces ready for use. She did purchase some shelving units for the playroom and a TV mount for the family room side, but beyond that everything was there or repurposed from other rooms of the house. Take a look at some before and after pictures:

We created a great learning center just by placing already existing toys on labeled book shelves. 

Before and After Kitchen zone

The Family room before and after

 

So there it is…a picture speaks 1000 words... and more!

Check out this blog link: http://seniormoves.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/moving-companies-and-senior-move-managers/ 

Tony from BD Movers out of NJ wrote a great article on the wonderful partnership that movers and move managers have developed over the recent years and highlighted A Sorted Affair for our work with him. His company is, as he describes it, a hybrid providing much more than the packing, loading and unpacking usually associated with a moving company. He recently contacted me about a client that he was moving into the DC area. I was so happy to know that he truly had his clients’ interests at heart. She would not have known to contact a move manager and boy was she happy that we were able to help her at this end of the move. Tony and I kept in touch prior to the move date, which was critical for our success here. He accurately gave me information about how much furniture, how many boxes and types that was being moved. Once his crew arrived here in DC, they were fantastic! The client was so happy that it was the same crew that packed and loaded her furniture and they would be unloading in her new home. And our work was about to begin. We unpacked all her boxes, placed furniture, set up her kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, hung pictures and more. She was delighted beyond words that we were there to help her. She was able to sleep in her bed that night, shower, and cook and by the next afternoon her new apartment was a home. Much of the success is due to the fact that Tony had the foresight to contact us… knowing she would benefit from our services.  Another successful move…

A Sorted Affair loves all our clients but we particularly enjoy our senior clientele and their families. We wanted to share with all of you a new (but not really new, just packaged differently) services we provide – SENIOR MOVE MANAGEMENT. With this service we can help manage all or part of an upcoming move. We will help downsize, schedule movers, supervise the pack and unpack and set up your new home. This is especially important for seniors as moving is a particularly stressful time. Often there are health limitations, but with a little support from us, the senior can still be a part of the process without being overwhelmed. With our help the new home can be set up and ready for a good night’s sleep quickly.  

We are advertised in the Guide to Retirement Living Source Book (www.retirement-living.com), the Jewish Council on Aging (www.accessjca.org) and are members of National Association of Retirement Counselors. We also have many resources within the industry so if you need help finding a good Gerontologist, a senior care manager, movers or more give us a call.  

About all the t-shirts -- sports, college, race, kids’ school, work and you get the idea. After a while you just don’t wear them, don’t want to get rid of them but they take up so much storage space and if they are stored away, you can’t enjoy them. Here’s a great solution: Campus Quilt

“Campus Quilt is dedicated to turning your old clothes into lasting memories in the form of fun and functional t-shirt quilts”. Check out their web site, www.campusquilt.com or call 502.968.2850. They take you through the order process step by step giving you a variety of sizes and the prices. So simple and now you can finally enjoy all those t-shirts.

Double H Mystery Hookless® Shower Curtain with "It's A Snap"™ Liner.

Our very own Caitlin Shear is teaching a class through ACE (Adult and Community Education) this Tuesday, May 18th called "I Can't Use It, What Do I Do With It?" It is a 90-minute evening class with great information and will be lots of fun. Check out the ACE website www.fcps.edu/DIS/OACE for her next class, "Organize Your Kids' Stuff" on June 8th at 7:30. You can register online or by phone 703.658.1201.

Series One/Post Five -- Jacki and Will's Basement

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS… 

The last words in Jacki’s blog, “And I am very very happy” makes me very very happy. It has been a pleasure working with Jacki and like with all our clients, I will miss spending time with her. Thanks, Jacki, for opening your home not only to me but to all our clients, past-present-and future. 

NOTE: The first 2 entries are November 6 (Caitlin and Jacki’s diary) and December 4 (Jacki’s post 2) if you would like to go back and read again before reading the final 3, 4 and 5.  Enjoy!!

Series One/Post Four -- Jacki and Will’s Basement 

At night I have dreams of old photos and negatives marching, dust-free, into neat boxes and giving up the ghost of free-fire zones past. Old love letters still make me smile -- my God, people had sauce and they didn’t care what they said. All that hand-writing... no wonder these tweeted male and female ‘dudes’ are so bored -- I can still feel the heat coming off of some of these scraps of paper. 

But will we ever... ever be free of the past? We’re still under siege with it in this house. I swear that if I had not married my husband, he would be one of those people who watch as papers pile up around him. Then, one day it’s over -- they tag your toe, and out you go and the papers are dumped. Is that any way to think about the man I love? This cleaning & sorting business is unhinging me. If Caitlin were not in our lives, I would have taken the train back to New York and never returned, no matter how lovely our garden.

I wish I had been able to measure how much detritus is here. Last week, I unearthed my husband’s old Santa Letter and it went to ‘Found’ Magazine. “Dear Santa,” it said. “I want four Creepy Crawler sets with four extra bottles of black plastigoop. Also the board game Stratego. I have been a very good boy.”

We drove to Rockville in heavy rain -- it’s miles from our house -- to go to the Container Store. For me, that store now is kind of like church: all those little vessels to save our souls. Our records don’t begin to fit in the crates marked for ‘records’, but -- these people have probably never seen a record. For the record, it’s black and round and encased in colorful cardboard, often larger than this 14 inch thing you sell for eight dollars.

BEFORE... and AFTER

 

Series One/Post Three -- Jacki and Will’s Basement

The other day I neatly folded a vintage cashmere sweater and put it away, in a drawer, in the bureau in my bedroom. And I thought: This is all because of A Sorted Affair! I hadn’t had a bureau in a bedroom in almost twenty years: I lived out of suitcases and closets and roll-away thingies you buy for exorbitant prices at the Container Store. If you live in a New York loft, as I do part-time, there may be no need for anything more than a closet. It never occurred to me to live otherwise in rooms with bureaus. Bureaus are where foreign correspondents live, and I was ready to go. I have my little stashes already waiting on wheels.

Now, though, I have a handsome teak (sustainable) bureau in the Swedish modern style. It matches -– in spirit, if not in fact, an older one that belonged to my husband (ok, I confess: I had ONE of his drawers, but he had all the rest.) Upon that bureau are a vintage lamp and a traveling antique writing desk from Syria. They look great there. My husband is happy.

And that is a good thing, because he was the whole reason for calling in the professionals in the first place, or so I told myself. A well ordered home does, I believe, provide a well ordered mind — isn’t that why hotel rooms were invented? But when you have to come to your own home and sigh, and moan, as I did, at the mere sight of our basement…well, it was enough to make me want to turn around and go right back out. There were things in there best left in the recesses of memory: the boots that had mice using them as a house; old but usable film equipment that went to a school; and 20,000 negatives that are now in chronological order. I can breathe again.

The Mondays Caitlin and I spent sorting, stacking, labeling, ordering items from IKEA to hold books, re-purposing stuff from the garage (though I am still hearing about an antique oil can I accidentally threw out) and getting an actual fold-out sofa in the basement were, to quote the bard, “Verie Heavyn”. We got a whole new level on our small Cape Cod (we believe in a collection of small houses, the better to rotate around and no, we don’t have kids. I do, however, have a box for kids’ clothes, which I buy all over.) just by emptying out the basement and creating a room. AND, behind a film poster painted on canvas from Iran, storage for suitcases and books, prints to be framed, and holiday décor.