After having two kids, my house had become disorganized and cluttered. So, I turned to a professional. Amy Lombard for BI In the five years I've lived in my house, there's an entryway bench I've never once sat on. This poor, sweet little bench is always buried underneath piles of coats, orphaned socks whose partners have presumably started new and better lives, and the occasional fossilized Girl Scout cookie. Our coat rack cowers in the corner, assuming the posture of a weeping willow in its final days. Many people with children recognize this tableau as the encroaching entropy of modern family life, where nothing seems to have a place, and the thought of fixing the chaos looms so large that it just never happens! I'd been meaning to declutter for a long time, but never got around to it. Amy Lombard for BI Decluttering had been on my to-do list for about eight months. At one point, I gleefully declared I would be "rewarding" myself every evening after bedtime by decluttering one small area. By day three, I realized this was the worst idea I'd ever had, and resumed bingeing "The Pitt." On day four, I decided to hire Raquel Bolton of Rainbow Rooms, a local professional organizer, to visit my home, assess the chaos, and implement systems to contain it. Ten hours of her time cost me $1,000. Here is what I learned. Where do we start? Raquel Bolton lives up to her company name: her leggings contained every color visible to the human eye, and she showed me photos of her own home, which is similarly bright and cheery. Bolton offered a free consultation to walk through my space as she gave an honest assessment: I had the budget for 10 hours. A full overhaul — including relocating the sprawling main-floor kids' zone to our finished basement, which is currently used for storage — would take about 30 hours over one to two weeks. We decided to do what we could, tackling the entryway and our connected living-dining room areas over the course of two days. @media (min-width: 768px) { .vertical-image-wrapper { display: flex; justify-content: center; } .vertical-image-wrapper .vertical-image { width: min(calc(80vh * var(--img-w) / var(--img-h)), 100%); min-width: 0; } } Bolton sent links ahead of time with storage options I could order before she arrived, but she was also happy to work with what I already had. We ended up doing a little bit of both. On our first day, Bolton immediately set to work sorting swiftly through years of accumulated kid clutter. "It's going to look a lot worse before it gets better," she warned, as we sat on the floor surrounded by Barbies with their hair chopped off, waterlogged puzzles missing key pieces, and a toy cellphone that had recently caused a full-on sibling war. Within minutes, she created piles: keep, donate, nostalgia, toss. What struck me most was how fast she moved. Where I might have spent 10 minutes debating the emotional significance of a broken toy stethoscope, she made the (correct) call in seconds. I was impressed by how quickly the organizer moved through my stuff. Amy Lombard for BI Before becoming a professional organizer, Bolton was a fifth-grade teacher and ran a home day care, so she moved through the piles with an intuitive sense of what was developmentally past its prime and what still had life in it. I got so emotional (over my) baby I expected to feel mildly embarrassed by all of the crap we would find, but I didn't anticipate the emotional weight of the process; a sizable number of toys and books triggered specific memories. I had to invoke my inner Marie Kondo — expressing gratitude for the joy each item had brought my family — and then say goodbye. And for particularly meaningful or high-value items that I couldn't part with, we had the "nostalgia" pile waiting. They'd later be put in a dedicated storage zone. Once we hit our stride, Bolton didn't need me hovering. She worked through the remaining areas solo, and I'd resurface periodically to find three neat piles awaiting my executive approval. The process felt efficient and literally saved me hours. Occasionally, mystery items would surface — Bolton used Google's AI tools to identify them. My favorite was a set of small wooden pieces that flabbergasted both of us, but that artificial intelligence correctly identified as fake pills from a doctor's kit. We were able to reunite them with their toy. At 2 p.m. sharp, Bolton took a break to sign her kids up for their town's coveted spring-break camp as soon as registration opened. If you are a parent, you understand. The moment was a humanizing reminder to me that this service was different from hiring other contractors: Bolton is also a mom in the trenches who navigates the same challenges, and she brings that perspective into every aspect of the work. The kitchen analogy Bolton has a signature framework she shares with every client: "Everything has a home." It sounds obvious until she maps it onto your actual life. "I tell my clients that the ideal playroom has a similar setup to a kitchen," she explained. "You have cupboards and drawers for putting things away, those drawers have specific contents, and then you have workspace — the countertop, the island — which is the equivalent of the playroom floor or a play table." The analogy extends to how we use the space. @media (min-width: 768px) { .vertical-image-wrapper { display: flex; justify-content: center; } .vertical-image-wrapper .vertical-image { width: min(calc(80vh * var(--img-w) / var(--img-h)), 100%); min-width: 0; } } According to Bolton, you would never empty the spoons and forks from your dishwasher and toss them randomly into a drawer mixed with the peeler and spatula. Yet, she pointed out, most parents do exactly that with their children's toys — lobbing everything into one giant bin — and somehow this seems completely normal. "For children, playing is their 'job,'" she said. "Toys are the tools they need to do their work. If we want children to be independent, they need to be able to find their tools." And when it comes to tidying up, Bolton cautions against ever telling your kids, "Don't mess up the playroom. I just tidied up in there!" You would never say: "Don't have a cup of tea. I just put the mugs away." Toys are meant to be played with. Volume problems I asked Bolton what the most common mistake families make that contributes to clutter. "Too many toys," she said, without missing a beat. "Of course, all the toys end up tossed randomly into one bin, because the quantity is so overwhelming. It's too time-consuming to put things in individual places when there are just too many of them." We probably don't need so many toys in our house. Amy Lombard for BI Her solution, apart from regular decluttering, is toy rotation. Rather than giving children access to everything at once, Bolton advocates treating toys like seasonal décor or a rotating wardrobe — a curated selection is accessible at any given time, while the rest is stored away. The payoff is twofold. First, tidying up becomes more manageable. Second, during her years running a day care, Bolton found that children play better when a limited number of toys are available. Fewer choices lead to less overwhelm and more focus. As a bonus, a toy that's been out of rotation for several weeks feels brand new when it comes back out. Putting everything back together again Bolton's core principles in practice are simple: keep things in their logical places, create systems kids can use themselves (picture labels for younger children so they can put things back independently), and remember that kids won't play with toys they can't see. And at the end of the two days, our entryway transformation was the most dramatic. Each family member now has a dedicated hook and bin — the simplest and most economical solution rather than a more elaborate built-in. The bench is, for the first time, accessible. I can now actually see and use the bench I've had for so long. Amy Lombard for BI Bolton also encouraged us to move a beautiful dresser up from the basement, where it had been sitting empty and unappreciated, into the dining room to house my husband's art supplies, my annual two-week knitting hobby, assorted electronics, and the general adult miscellany that had previously lived visibly on every horizontal surface in the house. A newly organized TV room. A dining room with a dedicated art cart. Adult things and children's things, finally separated. My 7-year-old son came home that afternoon and said, "This woman is a GOD! I can actually find things now when I want to play with them." He was especially pleased with his "weapons corner," which, I want to be clear, contains only foam Harry Potter Swords of Gryffindor. The next morning, instead of going straight to the TV, my kids went to their newly visible, newly accessible toys. Bolton would not be surprised. My kids loved the new playroom setup. Amy Lombard for BI But does it keep? After our initial reveling, a few days in, things looked a bit sloppy again, but it was a meaningfully different kind of sloppy. Things have places now, categories exist, and critically, there is just less of everything. That last part is probably the most durable change because no amount of system-building can compensate for the volume that comes from hanging onto a lifetime supply of miniature plastic objects engineered for a hyper-consumerist childhood where nothing is meant to last, except maybe the clutter. The kids eventually drifted back to their morning TV routine (because "Peppa Pig" remains, inexplicably, appointment television). Still, now, when I say "that's it" for TV time, they are less likely to whine and more willing to explore the analog alternatives around them. I do have one concern: the beautifully labeled craft supplies in their elegant storage bags have not been touched in earnest since the reorganization, although I'm glad my son is now doing his homework with a sharpened pencil instead of a half-chewed crayon. @media (min-width: 768px) { .vertical-image-wrapper { display: flex; justify-content: center; } .vertical-image-wrapper .vertical-image { width: min(calc(80vh * var(--img-w) / var(--img-h)), 100%); min-width: 0; } } There's something about a perfectly arranged space that can make it feel slightly museum-like — too ordered to disturb. Bolton would likely point out that this is the Instagram-aesthetic trap in miniature: organizing for appearance rather than function. The goal, she always says, isn't the "after" picture; it's a more functional space. I may need to be the one to crack open the watercolors first and give the kids permission to make a beautiful mess. The value question In the end, I spent $1,000 for Bolton's time and a modest additional sum on storage bins and hooks. Bolton was largely able to work with what we already had, so the out-of-pocket spend beyond her fee was minimal. More importantly, having an external person present forced me to make decisions in real time rather than defer them. The "keep, donate, nostalgia, toss" framework cut through months of my own avoidance in a single morning. That alone felt worth the price. Bolton charges by the hour rather than by project, as she's found it's the fairest way to handle jobs that tend to grow once families realize how much they've been holding onto. In the end, hiring a professional organizer forced me to deal with my clutter. Amy Lombard for BI At $100 an hour for the Westchester/NYC metro area, I think it's a reasonable expense for what amounts to a combination of physical labor, editorial judgment, and — when a particularly beloved but structurally compromised stuffed animal enters the picture — low-grade therapy. I know our home will never be perfect, and that mess can be excellent evidence of a happy childhood in progress. What Bolton gave us isn't a pristine playroom, but a system that can absorb the frenzy without completely surrendering to it. We're likely moving next year, and when we do, I'll hire Bolton again to clear out the kids' rooms and establish systems in the new space before total chaos has a chance to take root. Until then, I'll be sitting on my bench. Read the original article on Business Insider