Space and Time Organized

Special hazardous waste drop day in Albany this Sunday.
One-Day Drop-off Events (follow the link to register and get the address)
The Household Hazardous Waste program will host mobile one-day drop off events throughout the county. At no charge, Alameda County residents can drop off wastes they generated in the course of living in and maintaining their homes. See the list of materials accepted at the events.

The Household Hazardous Waste program is sponsoring a drop-off event in Albany on Sunday, October 8 for residents of Alameda County, starting at 9:00 am. Click on the link below to make an appointment and then you will receive a confirmation e-mail with the event's address.

Find out more and make an appointment
http://www.stopwaste.org/recycling/residents/household-hazardous-waste/one-day-event

Regular drop-off station info for Oakland
Oakland, 2100 East 7th Street, Oakland
• Wed–Fri: 9 am to 2:30 pm
• Saturday: 9 am to 4:00 pm
Closed
• Thanksgiving week
• December 25th through January 2nd
Make your household hazardous waste drop-off quicker, download the waste delivery form and fill it out before you get to the drop-off location.

Just finished a shadowbox project! Teri F. saved these trophies of her son’s college football years. You can practically hear the crowd. This was pure fun, planning the project with Teri, bringing together the elements and then it’s just hot glue and pins. You can see the components, and the finished shadowbox placed high on the wall with pride.

If you have mementos that need to get out of the closet, and shown off in creative ways, let’s get started. See my web site for contact info… www.SpaceandTimeOrganized.com

Janet Flint “calming the chaos of clutter”
Serving families and businesses in Alameda and Contra Costa County
Member of the National Association of Professional Organizers – SFBA Chapter

Reminder- My presentation at Ikea Emeryville is tomorrow - "Make Room for Design" or "Why is it so hard letting go of things?". If you are in the area and have a half hour to swing by, it would be great to see you there. IKEA has this on their "events" page too. I'll share my approach to getting organized and some of my favorite IKEA containers and tools!

Space and Time Organized Calming the Chaos: Janet Flint, Professional Organizer, dedicated to creating spaces that support your vision, instead of being paralyzed by clutter.

Art and the new year.
Thinking about art and inspiration, and how I’ve seen artistic friends use their walls. Lauren (bead maker, hi Lauren!) has tons of hanging art and is always moving it around. I arrive and see something new/not-new: it’s been part of the collection, she just moved it to front and center for me to enjoy. Ann (photographer, hi Ann!), said she kicked off the new year by taking ALL the art off the walls and starting over, that by clearing the walls they get to make fresh decisions about how to dress them.
I am sharing some paintings with you, work from my grandfather, Thurland Hanson. He immigrated from Norway around 1900, went to The Art Institute of Chicago and worked most of his life in new York. He worked in oil and watercolor and after the crash of 1929, he worked as an advertising illustrator. The portraits are of his wife, my grandmother Agnes Forest.
I have always felt lucky to get to live with these paintings. A nomad myself, I have carted them from New Mexico and up the California coast, to no less than 10 houses in 20 years. Now I like hanging them on chains from picture molding near the ceiling. It fits the era of their birth, and lets me move them around without putting new holes in the walls.
The laundry scenes and the woman in a sun hat are done with a pallet knife. I love the cool blues in the sun-hot areas and the warm browns in the shade. I like how the lines of the tenement houses bend. The neighborhood may have been Dobbs Ferry New York in the 30’s.
How does this relate to organizing? It’s about what we choose to put our focus on. Designers know and use this. A space can be very busy and still have some things command your attention. What do you want to focus on when you enter each room? This isn’t a test, it’s a new way of thinking about your space.
It’s a fine line sometimes between “busy” and “cluttered”. The difference is, how does it make you feel? For me, I want rooms to inspire activities – that can be relaxing, writing, creating, learning, cooking, talking, eating and watching a movie. I have nothing against clutter, some of the happiest people I know are surrounded by clutter and most parents live with it for 18 years whether they love clutter or not! If coming into your home or office, clutter makes you feel scattered or anxious, it might be time to get to work on clearing it up and creating new methods to deal with it.
I got into the business of decluttering and downsizing to help people get away from the stress of a mess, and get going on the projects that are important and energizing. When working with someone new, I always want to know what those projects and goals are, so that I can help them stay focused and weigh the many small decisions vs that goal. The goal might be inspired by design- IKEA simplicity or Architectural Digest flamboyance. It could be “I want to start a baking business” or “I don’t want my kids to have to sort through all this”.
In the words of my nephew Dylan (artist, hi Dylan!) “art makes me happy”. I love time with art, going to shows and galleries, making crafts or fixing things. Too many weeks go by where the daily demands of the job, chores and dates with friends or family gobble up a month and I made no time for art. This is my wish for the new year, more time for art! Wishing you a happy new year and more time for what you love.

Amazing Recycling Experience in El Cerrito CA
One might expect Berkeley to have the utopian recycle center… it can actually be found 5 miles to the north in El Cerrito. Drive into a clean roundabout-style pad and back into a spot. Haul out your steel, cardboard, plastic (film and hard plastic too). Over 40 categories can be sent to recycling here, even styrofoam-it goes to a local remanufacture that turns it into crown and baseboard molding!

As a professional organizer, this is a place that helps me do my magic for homes and offices in the East Bay. We help people make decisions about what to keep and what to let go of, and its rewarding when the space can be immediately liberated for other purposes. If you have a large job, it could be more cost effective to use a hauler, or schedule your annual bulk pickup with the city. For small jobs I am grateful to have the El Cerrito Recycle Center that solves so many problems in one trip. Check out their site at http://el-cerrito.org/index.aspx?nid=533

Goodwill has a couple of trailers on the site for donations. There is a book station, where books are dropped, and eager bibliophiles sort them for others and find their own treasures. A magazine bin, and bins to donate plant containers.

When we are ready to let go of things, we often hope the’ll benefit someone else, or get used again in the best way possible. From auction houses to consignment, Ebay, Craigslist, donation to recycling, there are many ways to make this happen, and in the information age, the system is pretty efficient. Every path requires some effort, so we have to choose how much energy we want to put into it, and how much we want to control the results.

Hard-to-recycle items: batteries/medications/fluorescent bulbs are expensive for the cities to process. So they only accept these items from residents served by West Contra Costa Integrated Waste Management, which includes homes and businesses from El Cerrito, Richmond, Hercules, Pinole, San Pablo and El Sobrante.

If you are looking for a solution to your space issues, and have questions about how to recycle or repurpose an item, I can help you consider your options. Check out my website for other stories and call me to help you “calm the chaos of clutter”.