That new house on your mind?

Client Blog featuring NPR's Jacki Lyden

Client: NPR Correspondent and Host, Jacki Lyden and Washington Post Photojournalist, Will O'Leary
Project: Basement Clean-out
Project Hours: 20

Jacki's Project Diary

I used to go down into my husband’s basement whenever I wanted to get depressed. I’m normally a somewhat ebullient person, but there’s nothing like the good old cry you can have, staring around at all that stuff. Old tools. Boxes of first communion cards. Checks from 1991, and those ‘nude not naked’ pictures of old girlfriends my husband, a photographer, took when he was a knave. One of his friends had left behind a life-size thingy of Christopher Reeve as Superman, but I got rid of that a long time ago. The head was bent over. The whole place reminded me of a beautiful novel by the late Laurie Colwin, “A Big Storm Knocked It Over.”

When I moved in here from New York and added, really just a FEW bits and pieces (surprisingly little, being a gal who likes to travel light) –well, I worked on the house and garden. The whole joint was a challenge; and I do like those. But I am not an archivist of anyone’s life but my own and perhaps, my mother’s. Everyone else can fend for themselves… but all this STUFF. Once, trying to write an article, I wound up dumping old phone books all day instead. I wasn’t sure if I had married a hoarder, but it looked like it.

We pared it down over the last few years, but it was still anything but sightly. Sometimes, writing upstairs, I could feel the basement crowding me all the way up here to my garret.

And then Caitlin came. Poof! Things are in ZONES! I cannot touch my husband’s STUFF unless he AGREES. (This brought him around. He had once vowed that she would NEVER darken our doorway. It helped that she is Irish, too.) We have made a small castle of boxes around “his” table but meanwhile, we have gone ahead. It’s too bad that almost 10,000 dollars of new electrical work and a new furnance/air conditioner are not something you can really talk about at dinner parties. Anyway, back to the ZONES! (What if we'd spent that money going to Africa? Then we'd be cold when the furnace broke.)

I love zones! Zone 1, memories. Zone 2, athletic equipment or garden stuff, whatever. Zone 3, maps. She got me a map case—better, for me than jewels. Ok, not better but: good.

She never laughed at us! Not even when she held up an old boot of mine and a mouse had chewed right through it. Do you know how disgusting I found that? About as bad as the niger thistle seed I found everywhere. It’s birdseed, I kept saying. Bird seed.

My husband’s old photographic equipment could have opened a studio, and did something like that at a nearby high school. (I will have to be patient about old film negatives.) I found a movie poster I had had painted in Tehran, a woman’s huge face. I have a loft in Brooklyn; it’s too big for THAT. But now, it is going to hang in our basement AS A ROOM DIVIDER. HOW COOL IS THAT? When we were in Arlington for Will's aunt's funeral, (where the Hibernerian society meets) I lured him into Crate & Barrel and we bought a sofa for the basement. (I don’t know about you, but the last time I got to go shopping with my husband at a Crate & Barrel was about five years ago, once. I think we bought a vase.)

So today, when I should have been upstairs writing, I found my car going to IKEA. Who knew it could do that with me hardly even noticing? And there I was, measuring Billy Shelves again (too tall) and scoping out what else they had: just like I had done in my youth. Because let’s face it: there’s alot more IKEA ahead in our lives than we might have wanted to believe there would be before the term “credit default swap” came to our rosy lips. If I I had a skill with packing crates; you’d be eating on them or THEY’D be the new shelving. But it takes too long to find packing crates these days. And guess what? Caitlin's normally encyclopedic knowledge of organizing products was WRONG about the Billy bookcases; they’re too tall. But I found something else. Some red things with a Swedish name, like LINNEAROP. Aren’t you glad IKEA is yellow & blue for the Swedish flag? If it were Irish, it would be gold and white and green. Soon, though, I am going to need a third dwelling place for all the books.

Caitlin and I talk about our lives while we work. This is curatorial work. When I leave her, or she leaves me, carting off the ugly, useless crap--making our lives a little freer and more functional--I want to do a little pole vault right back up to my desk. Soon, I’ll have to go out to my husband’s man-cave of a garage to have that sobfest; because the basement is becoming a sanctuary of sanity.

Not Ready For The Holidays? We'll Get You there!

The holiday season can be a hectic and stressful time. How can you prepare for the holidays with your already packed schedule? Let A Sorted Affair take the stress away this season by decorating for you. We'll bring out the boxes and bins, unpack, and decorate (leaving you more time to shop!). When the holidays are over, we'll carefully pack and store it away, preserving it for next year. Just call us at 804.464.9820. Or better yet, give us as an early present to someone you love!

Client Blog featuring NPR's Jacki Lyden

Client: NPR Correspondent and Host, Jacki Lyden and Washington Post Photojournalist, Will O'Leary
Location: Silver Spring, MD
Project: Basement clean-out
Project hours: 20

Caitlin's Project Diary

For me, finishing an organizing job is a double-edged sword.

When you really love working with a client, you miss your time together when you have done your job and they are, well, organized. This has been my experience with Jacki Lyden.

Jacki is an incredibly talented reporter and host at National Public Radio. She is married to Will O'Leary, a gifted photojournalist at The Washington Post.Given their respective professions, I knew that their basement would reveal buried treasures--and it did. Over the next weeks, Jacki will recount in her own wonderful voice our memorable, hilarious and creative hours together taming their unruly (though not unusual) basement.

Enjoy and let us know what you think!
Caitlin

---

Jacki's Project Diary

The Beginning

I met my husband, a photojournalist, after he'd had nearly four happy decades of bachelor guy hood. He'd been based in D.C. all those years; I'd traveled the globe. So, you might think I'd have more "stuff." But my husband had been a filmmaker and photographer; the center of his "men's" club. Our basement was chock-a-block with photos of everything from his enormous clan of a family to mademoiselle--shall we say, temps perdu. There were photo posters, negatives, paint cans, the contents of drawers, tools and twenty of years of newspaper clippings. Quaintly, once upon a time, those were called tearsheets.

Sometimes, upstairs writing in my second floor office, I'd distract myself by wandering down to the basement to see what I could "curate" into the recycling bin. A new bride, this did not make for matrimonial harmony. I had never had either a house or husband before, and the entire undertow of both seemed to consist of a tide of objet left over from the '70s. We got the house looking like ourselves, but what about the basement and garage? The Dungeon of Dark Despair; that was my name for it. And as two active people in the creative trades- I could be spreading out maps and documents and so on in the basement; he could be matting photos and creating cards-- we just needed the space.

When I read of Caitlin's "Sorted Affair," I felt she'd be amusing and understanding. Today she came, and she was both and much more. It was a delight.

She discovered my husband's 20 years of negatives and photos nestled up against the furnace. My husband had devoted his considerable handiness to the upper house since we got together--downstairs; there laid a netherworld of lost lore. Caitlin didn't flinch. With ceiling panels gone and wires hanging everywhere? Hey, she admired the window light. A collection of grey industrial shelves? Why not paint them a cute color? She was acting as a curator and as a journalist, I understood that-- take the best parts to tell the story. And moreover, she couldn't ethically throw anything of Will's away without him being there. That ought to make him happy.

My husband comes from an Irish family that saved every last thing. And I mean, every. last. thing. His father found precious things in his trove-- a triple A ball club invitation, speaking awards, photos of the family in Ireland, and so on. We haven't found those things downstairs yet. But by separating our basement stuff into his and hers and making two work zones-- well, low and behold, order began to emerge from chaos. Plus she gave me a tip: sit there with your husband while he tries to release some of those old clips, term papers and the good times of his '20s. I'm going to try that.

But in the meantime, I feel I have a partner in the draining decisions of what to move and throw first. For the first time I DO think that basement will one day be the beautiful storage, guest, and project space I intend for it to be.

Thank you, Caitlin!

Joanne’s Story

Joanne had an interesting challenge. She was moving from a smallish tri-level to a much larger center hall colonial. She had worked with the space in her old home very well, maximizing each closet and corner, and supplementing storage with no less than 8 armoires! She called for help in planning her use of space in her big new home. 

We walked through both homes with Joanne, talking through how she used the old spaces, and how we could maximize her use and enjoyment in the new spaces. She was especially excited about our recommendations for her master closet storage and her craft/art room arrangement. And each armoire found a place of perfect utility!