Preposterous paper trail disappears after office undergoes makeover

(Left; Owen Hughes Jr.; Right, Jesse Nunes / Globe Staff) A look at Mary Hughes' home office in Canton, before (left) and after the makeover.

In November, Mary Hughes's son Owen snapped a few pictures of her Canton home office and urged her to enter the Boston.com Office Space Makeover contest.

Weeks later, in an online vote, she won by a landslide.

Denise King, co-owner of Marblehead-based Clear the Clutter, coordinated the makeover with a small army of volunteers.

"This is obviously not working for you," King quipped upon entering the office, where piles of paper spilled from desks and tables, covering the floor in the basement office where Hughes manages the Canton Equestrian Center.

Running the 50-horse farm and keeping the books for her husband's horseshoeing business left Hughes little time to keep her office organized, she said.

"We have a lot of activity . . . at the farm that pulls me away," she explained. "The animals end up being the priority." The result was an avalanche of paper - old insurance policies, medical instructions, transfer papers for long-departed horses. Some papers were more than 10 years old.

It took a crew of three to four organizers, working alongside Hughes, 20 hours over a few weeks to get the paper under control. Brian McSharry, of Closet & Storage Concepts in Franklin, donated his company's time and resources, installing a new desk, multiple shelving units, and filing cabinets.

The hardest part of the process for Hughes? "Throwing things away," she laughs. "To have someone else telling you 'you don't need that,' it is a push you need sometimes."