organizing – Next Stage Journal

3 estate dispersal case studies

June 19, 2018June 21, 2018nextstagejournalLeave a comment

Dispersing an estate is hard. Executors and families have to navigate through an enormous amount of decisions that involve communication and coordination between family members and legal representatives all while living with the emotions of loss. It can be overwhelming.

About a third of our clients are dispersing estates, including those working through living estates for family members who are no longer able to remain at home or make decisions. One thing we know for sure: at the end of the day the executors need to be able to look back at the dispersal process and feel that they did their best work to carry out the intent and directions of the person they are representing. And we do our best to help them with that.

One of the most important things we do when working with families handling estates is to provide support and coaching. We provide the hands on packing and logistical knowledge, and can act as their representative if they live out of the area. But acting as a sounding board, presenting options, communicating with all involved parties and providing solutions is one of the most important tasks we are able to take on.

There are a lot of tasks involved in dispersing an estate. We live our lives every day. We may have our legal affairs in order, but our houses—maybe not so much.This is because we are human. We have the stuff we live with every day. And we have the stuff that hides in nooks and crannies, the product of deferred decision making. We had no reason to make decisions about it, so we didn’t. In other words, estates aren’t just about the assets and heirlooms, they’re also about the stuff of everyday living that has to be managed with to prepare a house for it’s new owner.

We provide a range of services for estate clients, commonly assisting with:

Initial clearing out things like food, recyclables, disposables and unneeded medications for disposal and donation.

Assisting in locating and organizing personal and financial documents, providing secure shredding for high volumes of materials.

Facilitating and coordinating identification, packing and transporting items being taken by family both locally, nationally and internationally.

Sorting remaining items to be sold or donated.

Arranging for the sale of items through consignment and auction.

Packing and delivering items to be donated, or arrange for pickup or items.

Coordinate with real estate agent to stage and prepare home for sale.

Provide inventories to family and legal representatives.

It’s not easy to imagine how someone who doesn’t know your family can be a part of dispersing an estate. About a third of our clients are doing just that. To help explain how we work to thoughtfully and respectfully work with estate clients, here are sketches of three recent jobs.

Case Study 1: The Family is Local estate

Client had lived in their three bedroom colonial home for sixty years, all siblings were local.

Worked in tandem with family for initial clear out of food and disposables.

(Family sorted and removed things being kept.)

Staged home for sale in consultation with real estate agent.

Sorted items not needed for staging to be consigned and donated.

Arranged for pickup or delivered those items to consignment shops, auction galleries and non-profits.

Returned after home was under sale agreement to remove remaining furniture and décor.

Case Study 2: The Long Distance Family Estate

Client had lived in their two bedroom ranch house for 30+ years, no family members were local.

Worked with family on sorting, marking and packing items to be shipped to them during the short period they were on site together.

Provided options and estimates for getting their heirlooms shipped, including an overseas container.

Packed and shipped smaller items via traditional services like USPS, UPS and FedEx.

Arranged secure transport and sale of firearms.

Cleared out all food and disposables.

Emptied house of all goods to be sold and donated prior to listing per realtor’s request.

Provided secure shredding of confidential documents.

Provided clients with donation and consignment inventories.

Case Study 3: The Finish it Up Estate

Client had lived in house for split level for 60+ years and moved out of state to be with family members. Family, all out of state, had removed all personal items and heirlooms.

Coordinated with real estate agent and family to determine that property should be emptied for sale, staging was not needed.

Sorted and removed or arranged for pickup of all items to be consigned and donated.

Consulted with family and shipped two boxes of overlooked personal items and items they regretted leaving behind after they left.

Disposed of refuse in large onsite dumpster, including removing all window treatments and area rugs, basement and garage refuse.

Coordinated services of removal company to empty two sheds on the property.

Arranged for the proper disposal of hazardous household waste.

Arranged for disposal of outdated and poor condition appliances.

Cleaned emptied house prior to listing by real estate agent.

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We’ve had the honor of working with families on estates as small as studio apartments and as large as triple deckers with full attics and basement. No matter what size the household, the most important part of working with a family on an estate is the discovery process. What looks like a ratty old suitcase might be full of letters written by a husband to a wife during WWII. A wedding ring might be hidden in a nondescript box under a dresser. A painting in the pile of “disposable” art might be actually be an original work by a well known modern artist and might sell for $32,000 at auction. A file cabinet full of confidential medical reports might need to be shredded. All of those examples are extremely real, and we have plenty more just like them. (Okay, maybe only a couple of the $32,000 ones.)

We consider it a privilege to assist with an estate—to be there with people through moments that bring tears and others that bring laughter. We appreciate the opportunity and are committed to do our best to make sure that when the family or executor looks back, they can feel that they did their best to honor and respect their relatives memory.

8 things we love for smaller living spaces

February 1, 2018May 23, 2018nextstagejournalLeave a comment

small apartment living

Moving to a new space often means reconfiguring and rethinking how you arrange things or how you store things. Over the past 8 years, we found a few things that have come in darned handy to help our clients moving to smaller spaces make the most of that space.

FLAT PLUG EXTENSION CORDS

One of the first jobs on move day is to get an extension cord in any outlet that will be behind a large piece of furniture. We love cords with flat plugs because they allow furniture to be closer to the wall.

NEW SURGE PROTECTORS!

Okay, we like this for any living space, not just smaller ones. Surge protectors have a lifespan. If you’ve been using yours for more than 5 years, it’s probably time to replace it. Although we can’t endorse any particular brand, the Wirecutter blog can–here’s there list. ‘

SLIDE OUT KITCHEN TRASH BINS

8galUndercabinetPullOutCanBlk_x — Slide out trash bin, The Container Store.

Nothing impedes the flow in a compact kitchen than having to dance around a wastebasket every time you cook. A under sink slide-out trash bin solves that problem.

SLIDE OUT PANTRY SHELVES

15+Pantry+Pull+Out+Drawer — Slide out drawer organizer, Wayfair.com

Many apartment kitchens have a deep pantry closet. The generous space is a beautiful thing, but having to go through contortions to get something out the the back is not. Slide out pantry shelves make it easier to get that elusive can of soup hiding behind the other cans, boxes and bottles.

LAZY SUSAN

A lazy susan can be worth it’s weight in cinnamon for organizing your spices, vitamins, teas and anything that comes in bottles and boxes whether tucked in a cabinet or on the counter.

VERTICAL PLATE ORGANIZER

More compact kitchens may have less cabinet space. Storing your plates vertically uses cabinet space efficiently and makes them easier to grab as a bonus. If you’re one of the people who rotate the dishes you use so the wear on them is even across the set, you’ll really love an organizer like this.

BATHROOM STORAGE

The one place most of our clients really feel the space crunch is in the bathroom. Changing the habit of buying in bulk is step one. In an apartment, you have less storage, and that storage space might be better used for for your off season clothes rather than your 36 rolls of toilet tissue, 12 rolls of paper towels and 6 boxes of tissues. But even with paper products pared down, additional storage is usually needed.

Apartments often have storage under the sink and a medicine cabinet, but not much else. A wall mounted storage cabinet or shelves is enormously helpful. Pinterest is stuffed to the gills with ideas for creative bathroom storage. One particularly clever idea: a shelf over the door for all those rolls of spare toilet tissue.

Wall mounted is usually a better choice than a floor standing storage unit. If you add a toilet seat with handles or a commode, there is a good chance the floor standing unit won’t fit behind it.

DOUBLE HANG CLOSET ROD

nickel-closetmaid-closet-rods-31220-31_1000 — Double hang closet rod, Home Depot.

Many apartments have nice walk-in closets. But with one clothes hanging shelf at a height for longer hanging garments, you give away a lot of space underneath your shorter hanging garments. Adding a second wall mounted shelf with a clothes hanging pole is the best choice, but short of that, and double hang rod that attaches to the top shelf is a quick, inexpensive fix.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Please note that we don’t have any special affection or allegiance to the products shown. Versions of these products are available multiple places by multiple makers. We love the concepts and have used many versions of them when working with clients. And if you have something to add to the list, we’d love to know about it!

3 days to add to your calendar

January 23, 2018May 23, 2018nextstagejournalLeave a comment

calendar book

There are three days you might want to consider putting on your calendar every month. They aren’t something you have to juggle among other appointments, places you have to go and people you have to see. They are flexible commitments to yourself. We have so many obligations to others, it’s easy to forget to make time to do things that will make you feel a little happier and a little more in charge of your life.

Day 1: Dangling Ends Day

Everyone has projects and/or tasks that never quite cross the finish line. For some reason, they get postponed or shoved to the back of the task pack. So they hover about like annoying little gray clouds. Declare one day a month Dangling Ends Day—a day to tie up all the loose ends on those projects and chase those clouds away. Believe me, the anticipation of getting those things done is always worse than actually doing them.

Dangling Ends Day requires some self commitment. If you write it on the calendar, you owe it to yourself to do what you’ve asked yourself to do. At the end of the day, you will be pretty darned pleased with yourself.

Day 2: Phone a Friend Day

We have friends we see a lot, that are a part of our lives now. And we have friends that we don’t see all that often. They’re on our mind, but we just never manage to get together. And time passes; months can go by without talking to one another. That’s why we all need to make time on our schedules for Phone a Friend Day. It’s amazing how good it feels to make a simple phone call.

If you’re not a phone person, a great alternative is Write a Note Day. Texting is fun and fast, but there’s nothing nicer than to get a real letter in your mailbox.

Day 3: Declutter Donation Day

We all have a few to many things in our lives. Some of us let them accumulate longer than others. Declare a Decluttering Donation Day every month. Whether you take magazines to the library magazine swap pile, clothes that you no longer need to a shelter or tchotchkes to a charity thrift store, make a point of making at least one donation run a month, getting things you no longer need to places that can do good with them.

That’s our short list. What kind of day would you add to your list to make you feel happier and less stressed?

Editing your workshop

January 15, 2018May 23, 2018nextstagejournal2 Comments

A well-stocked workshop is a beautiful thing. Having the right tool, right screw, right dab of paint when you need it makes household repairs end in victory instead of an unplanned trip to the hardware store. But the workshop can also be a catchall full of “that might come in handy someday,” things you bought for one job a decade ago, and other mysterious hardware findings that somehow found their way into your life. If you’re an average human, your workshop has probably built up all kinds of hardware flotsam slowly over time.

Whether you’re staying where you are or in the beginning stages of downsizing, a bit of time editing of your workshop is time well spent. Reducing clutter, reminding yourself of what you actually have and tidying up will make finding whatever you need when you need it easier.

Wondering how and where to start? Sort things by type, rather than by area. Your hand tools might share a drawer with tape and paintbrushes, but it’s much easier to assess what you have when you gather like things. How else will you realize that some way, some how you have managed to have a bakers dozen of phillips head screw drivers?

workshop tools

Identify your key hand tools, sort out your extras

Looking at your hand tools, what are your essentials and what are your duplicates and surplus non-essentials? Group all the surplus together, you’ll be surprised at how many screwdrivers and measuring tapes you have. What to do with those no longer needed hand tools? Make up a tool box for someone in your family who is new to living on their own. Make up small kits to donate to furniture banks for families that have lost everything and are starting over. Donate individual tools to a non-profit Habitat for Humanity ReStore or a similar organization.

Review your power tools

Two things to think about with power tools: do you still use them and are they old enough that they’ve been outmoded by newer models have improved safety. Tools that take up space but haven’t been used for years can be donated, sold or passed on UNLESS they are no longer safe to use. Those should be recycled.

Some power tools represented big investments at the time they were purchased. But if you don’t use it, if you don’t need it or if it’s not safe, it has not earned a spot in your life and it’s time for it to move on.

workshop nails

Sort your nuts and bolts and bit and bobs

A good workbench has a nice assortment of hardware. Hardware is small, doesn’t take up much space and has a magical ability to multiply in stealthy ways over time. Look for screws you bought for one particular project—you needed two, you had to buy a box. And jars of rusty nails. And coffee cans of rusty nails. And the ever popular little bags of hardware that came with furniture, window treatments etc. You will likely find that you have more brass brads than any one person will ever use in a lifetime. Edit down to what you are likely to use and donate or share the rest with others.

workshop miscellany

Equally able to multiply with stealth are the bits and bobs: outlet covers, adapters, picture hangers, plastic caps, felt furniture pads, lengths of chain, ceiling hooks, mending plates, L-brackets. If you don’t see a use for it in your immediate future, let it go.

workshop cans

Sort your cans and bottles

The workshop is a chemistry lab. There are solvents, lubricants, cleaners, putties, adhesives, paints, stains and everything in between. Start by sorting into three groups: useful, dried out/hardened, no longer needed.

Review the useful things so you know what you have. Put them back on the shelves, grouping like things together. The dried up things can go into the trash. The no-longer-needed things can be divided again into: things you can offer to others, new or nearly full things you can donate, things you can safely dispose of and things that are hazardous waste.

FYI: Old latex paint can be opened, mixed with cat litter and left somewhere with ventilation to harden. Once it’s hard, it can go in your regular trash. Alkaloid paints that clean up with spirits are.

Sort your project supplies

Sometimes a project requires specific supplies. The things that springs to mind immediately are decorative paint treatments, wall papering and laying tile. If you don’t see those projects happening again in your near future, pass on, donate and/or dispose of those things as is appropriate.

workshop glue tape

Take a look at what’s left

There are lots of things in a workshop that we haven’t talked about like tapes, painting supplies, pipe wraps, rolls of screen mesh, extension cords, twines and ropes, doorknobs, latches and more. Sort through the rest of these things with a trash can on one side and a donate box on the other side.

Step away from the rickety stepladder

Look at your collection of stepladders. Some might be best voted off the island for safety reasons. It might have lived a long full life and is a little rickety from age. Or it might be poorly designed and wasn’t particularly safe to use from the start. (Those are the ones without anything to hold on to when you are going up 2 or 3 steps.) And anything held together with duct tape should probably also be asked to leave.

It’s not a bad time to look at a step stools as well. If it has a non-slip top, wide balanced base and no duct tape reinforcements, it’s probably fine. If not, time to go!

And finally…

Now that you’ve sorted and organized, you may find yourself with storage boxes, drawers and bins that you don’t need anymore. Donate or pass them on, don’t leave them to fill up again! And give yourself a pat on the back at a job well done. Somewhere, someone is setting up their first workshop, and the things you no longer need will go on to have a new, useful life with them.

New year, new way to fold clothing

January 10, 2018May 23, 2018nextstagejournal1 Comment

pants-389923_1280

We all have a favorite method for storing clothes in drawers. Some of us fold precisely, some of us roll and some of us are just fine with a random tangle as long as all the things with arms are in one drawer and the things with legs are in another drawer. When we’re on the job with a client, we fold clothes or linens their way. Myself, I alternate between roll and fold. But the new year always makes me itchy to try new things, so I decided to look into the whole Konmari folding thing.

What is Konmari? It’s the name of the organizing methods of international superstar organizing phenomenon, Marie Kondo, the author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (2011). For her true believers, it’s not a book, it’s the gospel of an organizing religion—ritual decluttering that enhances the quality of their lives. In the interest of learning something new that might help our move management team do our job better, I have tried to read the book. Multiple times. True confession, I have not succeeded. It’s a little strident for me.

At our NASMM conference a couple years ago, one of the presenters demonstrated the Konmari folding technique and while I was not an immediate convert, it stuck in my brain. Particularly the visual image of a t-shirt folded and placed vertically in the center of the table. It was still there, as she placed it, at the end of the hour. It wasn’t hard to find videos and diagrams to refresh my memory on Konmari folding. The internet is full of them.

In a shirt folding video, Marie Kondo lays the shirt flat, caresses it and thanks it for its service before folding it gently into a rectangle. With a cynical sigh, I emptied my shirt drawer and laid the first tee-shirt flat on the bed. As I smoothed it flat and folded it into the neat rectangle and folded it a couple more times until it became a tidy vertical-standing, gravity-defying parcel, I realized that shirt that made me happy every time I wore it because I loved the color and the cut. In spite of myself, eye rolls aside, I had thanked that teal blue raglan sleeve tee. I knew it had earned a spot in my life and my drawer.

I worked my way through the short sleeves, long sleeves, sweaters, sweatshirts, things with legs, things to wear on feet, unmentionables and cozy things to burrow under blankets in. That process of carefully flattening, folding into neat rectangles and lining up in the drawers was peculiarly enjoyable and ultimately liberating. For all the clothes I loved, there were a fair number that I tolerated; garments I kept because I spent money on them and not because they made me happy when I wore them. By fair number, I mean 6 large bags full of clothing that I sent on to either textile recycle because it was ratty and tatty or donation because it was in nearly new condition.

Dropping those 6 bags at their destinations felt marvelous. Fitting all my summer and winter clothing into my drawers and closet so nothing offseason was stored in the attic felt even better. My hope is that this exercise will keep me from purchasing things that are just meh; things I don’t really need and things that won’t add value to my wardrobe.

There are many videos out there, some featuring Marie Kondo and other featuring devotees demonstrating her methods. This book trailer for her second book, Spark Joy (2016) made the folding process super clear for me. And the video of her folding awkward clothing at New York’s 92stY is funny and charming.

While it’s not for everyone, you might be just as surprised as I was to find out that a simple change in how I folded my clothing could make me happy every time I open a drawer and find clothes I am fond of standing at attention, ready to lend me another day of service.

Smoke Detector Battery Change Day!

November 1, 2015May 23, 2018nextstagejournalLeave a comment

Today is the day to change the batteries in your smoke detector.

Happy National Change-the-Battery-in-your-Smoke-Detector Day! More commonly known as the day you get to sleep an extra hour thanks to daylight savings time, there is no better way to celebrate this once a year holiday than to get out the step ladder and change the batteries in your smoke detectors. And while you’re at it, take the celebration to a higher level and change the battery in your carbon monoxide detector as well.

Daylight savings time marks the beginning of the time of year when space heaters, candles and fireplaces see common use because if it’s going to get dark at 4 p.m., it’s nice to be warm and cozy. Open flames and heating elements are always pointed to as dangerous. But interestingly enough, according to the U.S. Fire Administration nearly 50% of household fires are caused by cooking. Who knew that the creme brûlée in your oven is more likely to start a fire than your creme brûlée scented candle?

While you’re changing the battery in your smoke detector, you might find that you wrote the date you installed the the original detector written on it somewhere. If you did that, you are very savvy indeed, because like most pieces of equipment, smoke detectors have life spans. Consumer Reports magazine says the life expectancy of a smoke detector is 10 years. After 10 years, out with the old, in with the new. They also report that pressing the test button tells you only if your battery still has juice in it. The test button does not tell you whether or not the inner bits of the smoke detector that do the important work are functional.

The number of smoke detectors your home needs depends on the size and type of home. The National Fire Protection Association spells out the specifics for optimum installation very clearly on their website. There are different types of smoke detectors: ionization, which detects flaming fires best and photoelectric, which is better at catching smoldering fires. Your house should have a combination of types. For sound sleepers and those who have hearing loss, there are smoke detectors with flashing strobe lights and smoke detector accessories that shake the bed.

Today is a great day to show the friends and family who are special to you just how important they are to you by showing up at their house with either replacement batteries or a new smoke detector. It’s one of those tasks that a lot of us think about doing but plan to take care of it…tomorrow…or the next day. Surprising someone by turning up to do it for them is the kind of surprise that puts a spring in their step. It’s the kind of surprise that will take some of the sting out of the realization that it’s going to be dark by 4 pm today (and for the next few months).

Today may just be the easiest-peasiest holiday of the year to throw a proper celebration. You don’t need costumes, fancy food, gift wrap or decorations to celebrate National-Change-the-Battery-in-your-Smoke-Detector-Day. All you need is a step ladder, the right batteries and a dollop of let’s do it. We hope you made good use of your bonus hour today, now get out there and celebrate!