Organizer finds calm amid closets' chaos

Ann Marie Williams does not seem flustered when she cracks open my closet door and finds a jumble of shoes on the floor, pants mixed with shirts hanging from the bar, and a cascade of blankets and fleece pullovers spilling from the shelves above.

``Take everything out," she said pleasantly.

This is where Williams, who four years ago quit her job in celebrity product placement at Reebok, began her session on helping me get organized.

Her business, Atmosphere Consulting, caters to the increasing demand for professional help to put in order the nation's vast amount of stuff: clothes, papers, toys, and equipment. And the change of season, especially between summer and fall, is particularly busy as people move, start a new job, put away the flip-flops and pull out the boots, or just try to make room for new purchases.

Although not everyone needs a professional organizer, Williams says many do because they feel overwhelmed, have difficulty deciding what to keep, throw away, or donate, or may be unsure how to better use the storage space they have.

``It's definitely a growth business," she says. ``People are just really busy. We are a consumer nation. We have too much stuff."

Professional organizers have been around for awhile, but the recent spate of television shows that remake cluttered spaces into bastions of neat have helped propel the popularity of people such as Williams, she believes.

``What people don't realize is that it does take time to do it. And it does take discipline after the fact," she says.

She began my consultation by sorting the wardrobe by category, then color. Next, she worked with me to edit down the segments that seemed suspiciously large. ``Do you need this many nightgowns?" she asked. I had to think for a moment, and then found a way to part with two.

Next she laid out three signs on the bedroom rug: ``Consign," ``Donate,"and ``Repair," and the piles accumulated on the floor. ``You have to act on that right away," she said. ``So it doesn't go back in the closet."

The biggest problem in my closet was not the clothes, which I had already savagely edited -- except for the nightgowns -- but the sheer number of handbags.

Williams suggested hanging my two-dozen handbags on a shoe rack clipped to the back of another door, keeping the accessories together and freeing up more space in the closet.

The solution was typical of those she recommends, explaining that not every organizational challenge requires an expensive gadget to tame the chaos. She also says it's helpful to have multipurpose storage, such as trunks that serve as coffee tables as well as a place to keep blankets or toys.

One of the biggest challenges Williams encounters is the large amount of sweaters New Englanders have. ``People have a hard time getting rid of them," she says. ``There's probably a nurturing connection." She encourages people to edit their sweater collections and keep them in tidy piles with the help of clip-on shelf separators. Simple metal bookends also work the same way.

She says another cold-weather challenge for people who live in New England is shoes. ``You often need to deal with it at the front door because they're dirty," she says.

Overall, when the job is done, clients are delighted.

``People feel better," she says. ``It gives them clarity and calm."