The Home Edit: A Guide to Organizing and Realizing Your House Goals

Book Preface

If you’re feeling even a little bit overwhelmed at the thought of organizing your home, you should immediately breathe a sigh of relief. Because truthfully, we at The Home Edit are barely capable of simple tasks like ironing or cooking rice (Do you leave it covered? Uncovered? Do you need to stir? Why is it so complicated??). But what we are good at is walking into a room, seeing past the mess, and coming up with a methodical plan of attack. So if we can somehow create sense out of chaos, we bet you can, too.
When we first launched The Home Edit (or THE, as we are often called), we had a very clear objective: Transform the way people think about organization. Now…we understand we’re not performing brain surgery or curing cancer. BUT we’ve seen firsthand how powerful it can be to create a clutter-free space and make it exceptionally functional—whether it’s the kids being able to help themselves to a cereal station in the pantry (we’ll do anything to get thirty more minutes of sleep) or finally being able to see your clothes in the closet after clearing away twenty years’ worth of nostalgia
(no, your daughter will not want that shirt one day).

We weren’t satisfied with being just another couple of organizers who could sort things into bins and use a label maker. We wanted our spaces to function and look beautiful. So we figured out a unique system that adds a layer of visual aesthetic alongside the practical one—much in the same way a designer approaches a space.

We didn’t do this because it looked amazing on Instagram or because we really (really) like when things are organized in rainbow order—we did it because we believe that organizing spaces shouldn’t just be about putting things in their place. Nor should it just be about the way the room looks. We wanted to showcase the magical sweet spot that exists where function meets form—when spaces are efficient, user-friendly, and aesthetically pleasing all at once. It not only makes sections of your home more enjoyable to look at, but we’ve also found that sprinkling this extra layer of pixie dust inspires people to maintain their organized spaces. Which is the whole point!If, as our client, you’re not able to maintain the systems we put in place, then we didn’t do our jobs effectively.

If we were to go back to your home a year later, we’d want to see that The Home Edit is still working for you. Literally the first thing we do when revisiting a client’s home is to check to see if that vanity drawer or linen closet looks like we organized it last week; if so, we give ourselves a shiny gold star. And guess what? We have a sticker chart FULL of gold stars because the systems we create really do work. (Obviously we keep track of these things because we love accomplishments almost as much as we love sticker charts.) It wasn’t long before we started to feel like something bigger was happening. Clients all over the country, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Molly Sims, Rachel Zoe, Tiffani Thiessen, and Mindy Kaling, were requesting our services. And then we started to see our work splashed across Domino, Architectural Digest, the Today show, and even the Target website (which was probably the most exciting thing to ever happen to us—no offense to our children). The more exposure we received, the more people asked us,

“How on earth can I do that in my home? Surely whipping my house into perfect Gwyneth-worthy synchronization is expensive, time-consuming, and requires a team of people.” Honestly, that’s not true. We’re not gonna lie, organizing can be hard—it requires work, time, and thoughtfulness, and it can be more emotional than people expect. But if you have a system in place and rules to follow—and you don’t bite off more than you can chew—you can get there. And you can trust us on this, because if we can do it, pretty much anyone can do it! (See “Are You a Good Candidate for Organization?,” this page.)