Hi Everyone! I am on vacation from organizing this week, so luckily, closet designer to the stars, Lisa Adams of LA Closet Boutique, is here to share some closet inspiration. Personally, I have a bit of an obsession with celebrity closets and I am always clipping images of them from magazines and posting them to my Tumblr blog, so I am so excited to welcome Lisa to Hatch!  Take it away Lisa…

In the last few years, well designed, luxurious closets have become status symbols.  Flip through the pages of home décor or entertainment magazines, and you can easily find features on plush, tricked-out celebrity closets.  If a custom closet is beyond your means, there are some easy and low cost ways of adding the same chic and luxurious touches to your closet. Here are some of my recommendations:

• ACCENTS: Pick a few plush looking accents from a bargain store or even the flea market or Salvation Army. From pillows and rugs to paintings and lamps, your eye will be drawn to that unique, maybe even antique piece.
• PAINT: Add a bright color to one wall of your closet to add spunk and high energy, or use cool shades like grays, blues and purples to promote relaxation.
• HANDLES & KNOBS: Find interesting handles and knobs to bring a touch of style and luxury to your closet.  There are fabulous leather and stainless steel options. Yard sales, flea markets, and even hardware stores can be treasure troves!
• MIRROR: Add a full-length mirror to the dead space.  It’ll make the room feel bigger and be functional.
• SEATING: If you have the room, add a sitting area.  The seat could be used for lounging or for putting on your shoes.  A sitting area makes the closet a true living space.
• LIGHTING: Lighting is very important when choosing your outfit and getting dressed.  Pay attention to the lighting to make sure it is natural and not overpowering. Also, use natural lighting whenever possible, such as windows and skylights. It flatters more and saves on cost.
• DRAWER LINERS: Lining your drawers either with cedar, lavender or even pretty paper is a beautiful, cheap and a great motivator for keeping things neat and orderly.
• HANGERS: Don’t skimp on the hangers.  Make them uniform for each type of clothing.  It’s a good investment in the long run because your clothes retain their shape, and don’t snag or become ruined.
• BOOT TREES:  Invest in boot trees or boot shapers for maintaining their shape and to prevent cracking and creasing.  Your boots can then be displayed like a shoe store, and will have a longer lifespan.
• STACKABLE SHOE RACKS: Get your shoes off of the floor and organize them with chrome stackable racks.  With a simple expandable two-tiered design, you can store more shoes in a limited space.
• SLIDING SHELF DIVIDERS: Bookends for your closet, these sliding shelf dividers come in various heights and depths and are perfect to keep rows of sweaters stacked like in a boutique.
• DOUBLE HANGING RODS: Without having to overhaul your tight closet, these double rods add function to wasted space by providing two layers of hanging space at once.
  

If this list is too long for you, simply hire Lisa, or visit LAClosetDesign.com and scoop everything up in the one place!

As I trudge through trying to create the workspace that will inspire me to actually spend time in my office working, I have been amassing images of workspaces that I admire. Here are a few I covet:

Sharon Portnoy Design

Loadingdock5 Architecture

Ish and Chi

sfgirlbybay

Turquoise L.A.

emma’s design blog

not sure of original source. PLEASE COMMENT if you know so I can add it.

Aalto’s office via Apartment Therapy

first five photos from houzz.com. The rest were in my tumblr stream.

When it comes to blogging, I’m not too big on giveaways, unless it’s something I really believe in and would want to win myself. This is one of those times. The folks over at Simplify 101 were so pleased to see their e-course mentioned this week, that they are offering FREE enrollment in a week long e-seminar to two lucky Hatch readers! Because it starts in a week, the deadline for entering will be at noon on Wednesday, May 19. Just leave us a comment telling us you need help getting organized and you’d like to participate and we’ll pick new names at random on Wednesday. If you want to give any of the details about your mess, PLEASE SHARE! I’d love to hear it, because it makes me feel better about my own organizational stumbling blocks. You’ll need to have some time cleared each day to dedicate to getting organized. Here are some details and links:

Whether the state of clutter in your home has you overwhelmed to the point of not knowing where to start, or you’re ready to turbo-charge your organizing efforts—the simplify 101 “Help! I Don’t Know Where to Begin!” workshop, beginning Thursday, May 20, 2010, is for you! This workshop is designed to give new users a taste of simplify 101’s online workshops. Best yet, this workshop includes a coupon code good for $5 off your next workshop purchase! There’s a whole new way to get organized!

I cannot tell you how much I’ve accomplished since starting another Simplify 101 workshop;  it’s been very motivating. It literally makes you feel lighter and more free. If you are ready to start getting organized but don’t know where to start, leave a comment before noon (that’s east coast time) on Wednesday May 19. We’ll contact the winners that afternoon.

• image by Bosworth Hodemaker, via Houzz
  

For this week’s organizing tip I turned to Laura Marsden, a member of our Design Public Team, for some help. She has all kinds of great ways of stashing necessities all over her home, and one of my favorites is how she stashes her yard stuff – it’s so clever and cute, and it’s a great way to repurpose something that might have become junk. Check it out:

Out in the garden – Our garden is a bit far from the garage or the house.  We painted and mounted an old mail box to store things that you often need but don’t want to carry back and forth – garden gloves, pruning shears, watering nozzles, spare seeds…

Being organized and being pretty don’t have to go hand-in-hand, but it really helps. I recently treated myself to a fun class, and one of the first things our teacher told us was to get a pretty notebook. Cynic that I am, I kind of snorted at that, but two days later I found myself at Papersource plopping down twenty-five bucks for a KOLO linen three-ring binder.* Let me tell you why it was worth it. I put all of my assignments in it and left it out on the coffee table. I wasn’t constantly trying to stash some ugly vinyl binder somewhere out of eyesight and losing track of where that spot was! It looks so nice I want to grab it and read what’s inside.

Unlike Flavia, who showed us her Style Files last week, my notes for blogging are usually scribbled on scraps, post its, paper-clipped to lampshades, stashed in a folder I forget is in my filing cabinet, etc. I decided to bite the bullet and splurge on a blogging files binder. Or maybe I just wanted an excuse to go back to Papersource; I’m not sure. However, now when I mercilessly rip sheets out of magazines because they inspire an idea, they don’t wind up crammed between books when I need to pick up. I stash them in plastic sleeves.

Finally, (OK, I swear, after this, no more Papersource for me for AT LEAST a month – that place is my own personal crack den), I took a good hard look at my most hated binder. I’ve had the actual binder since grad school. I think it still says “QUEST” on the side, which was this stupid kumbayah snoozer of a class we budding landscape architects had to take with all of the architects, urban planners, and preservationists our first semester. The lectures were OK sometimes, but the early morning discussion sections – I’m still pissed that they robbed me of hours of my life. The point is, the cheapo hideous binder already has bad juju all over it. In its repurposed life, it says “2008 Expenses” on the cover in Sharpie, and it has two and a half year’s worth of tax receipts in there. I dread having to use it. I actually keep it hidden so I don’t have to think about doing my taxes. Now it’s time to say goodbye to it and hello to the new KOLO home for my tax crap. Of course it’s black! I think I’ll put a skull and crossbones in the square on the front.

So, too review, here’s why you should organize with pretty stuff:

1) You won’t lose it because won’t be throwing it under the sofa and out of sight all the time.

2) You will actually want to look at it and interact with it, because it’s right there in your face and you’ll be admiring it.

3) It will make you actually keep your stuff all in one designated place.

4) It gives you an excuse to go to Papersource and spend obscene amounts of money. OK, maybe this one should not be in the pro column.

Sayanora Quest Class/I.R.S. Folder!

*The Unclutterer recommended these in this New York Times article a month or so ago, and I had been unable to get them out of my head. They make really beautiful photo albums as well.