I have a little secret to reveal, while I wouldn’t consider my husband and I as ‘hoarders’, we do have a tendency to become attached to our possessions and giving them more sentimental value than they deserve. My husband seems to have an issue with wanting to keep every single gadget, wire and electronic item, despite never or rarely using them. I have heard through the grapevine, that this seems to be quite common ‘husband’ problem.

Well, I’ve decided that enough is enough and we’re making some drastic changes to the way we live our lives, what we consume, the waste we generate and a big change we’re making as we edge into 2020 is to DECLUTTER and have an overall leaner, more minimalist lifestyle…

Right – Ella Cole of The Breathing Room.

…Queue my introduction to the lovely Ella of the ‘Breathing Room Dubai’, who I discovered on while Insta-stalking UAE home organising accounts. Ready yourself to read in wonder of her magic in my home.

Before

My office before the declutter

What to say? It was horrendous! Boxes and boxes of random items, suitcases, paperwork, business cards and magazines that were years old.

My kitchen before the declutter

My Kitchen wasn’t too bad, but it lacked the order and organisation I craved and I felt that the minimal storage space we had just wasn’t being utilised to the best of its capabilities.

Left: The office before. Right: The kitchen before.

The process

Ella did a home visit at my convenience and started with a consultation. She assessed the clutter in the rooms that needed the most help, namely, my kitchen and our hellhole of a spare room/home office. She focussed on problem areas; scanned cupboards, drawers, shelves and took notes as well as pictures.

The next thing she did was to outline the project plan with a timeline for each room – Approx. 5 hours for each. To be honest, the office needed more time than that, but we agreed to start with 5 hours. Although I already had quite a good number of boxes and storage solutions, Ella made a shopping list of items to improve on what I already had to help organise and increase storage capacity. Such as the following for the kitchen:

Shoe racks and turntables for easy access and visibility of spices, jams, etc.

A shoe organiser to store various knickknacks that don’t belong in drawers.

Bins and baskets to contain similar items together

Clear food containers to save cupboard space and to look more aesthetically pleasing.

Shelf risers, to maximise vertical cupboard space

The office de-cluttering process involved a tonne of organising items into categories for donation, recycling and rubbish. Prior to the start, the room had been left in a complete mess and was full of dust – a total eyesore. Honestly, I felt embarrassed to show Ella, but she was so professional about it; very understanding, non-judgmental and inspired me with the hope of this room seeing better days.

During the initial stages, myself, my husband and our lovely nanny Nilu stayed and helped Ella, letting her know what we wanted to keep, discard or donate. Once this was done, my husband and I headed off for work and Nilu was around in case Ella had any questions. We left Ella to her own devices and she promptly Whatsapped me whenever she had any questions about items that she or Nilu were unsure of. I really appreciated this, because it is a little nerve-wracking to leave someone you don’t know very well to make decisions about your belongings and essentially, your home.

After

I came back home from work to an organised and clean kitchen with easy to find items and in order! This room automatically felt more inviting and inspiring. Even my nanny was over the moon and Ella had even provided Nilu with some training on the reasoning behind the organisation and how to maintain it moving forward.

Perhaps the most powerful effect of Ella’s work is its ability to relieve you of ‘that something’ that constantly niggles away in the back of your mind and leaves you in a constant state of unease. For a long time, my office had been on my mind, coming home to find it in far better shape than I had ever seen was a huge weight off of my shoulders. Although the 5 hours just wasn’t enough to totally bring this room back to full health, what Ella achieved within the time frame she had was amazing! We shifted a huge amount of junk making things easy to find, access, and clean around. Adam and I still need to go through several boxes before we can start the decorating process to increase it’s functionality, so watch this space!

To Sum Up

When my home is in disarray, my mind also feels cluttered! Having a professional to help me organise the chaos, was such a relief and now I want to navigate through the entire house, one room at a time until we have everything in order! Next on my mind is our bedroom. Ella was a pleasure to work with and I totally felt at ease leaving her in my home to do her thing after the initial purge together. If you can, and really do need the help, I highly recommend hiring The Breathing Room Home Organising to assist you with all your decluttering and home organising needs.

Want to know what to do with all of your junk after? I had a garage sale at home and made 600aed, selling mainly clothing to local nannies. I asked my nanny to spread the word and posted on our local facebook community group. I also gave a tonne of baby clothes and toys away to the community security gaurds, who sent the items to family and friends in Africa. I had a tonne of stuff picked up by ‘take my junk’ and also recycled items. Lastly, I posted more expensive items for sale on our local community 2nd hand facebook group and sold 5 items in a day. Good luck!

Homie Bonus!

Make sure you quote “HOME CLUB ME” to avail Ella’s special offer on their 5-hour package. Book a 5-hour session (1,125AED) and get 1 hour completely FREE. You can follow The Breathing Room Home Organising at @breathing_room_dubai on Instagram, check their website out here or email [email protected] for more information.