by Kate Jonuska
corral your “things” and display them with pride
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZERS Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin have a talent for making functional design feel like personal affirmation. Well-stocked and likely sorted according to the rainbow, their examples of organized diaper-changing tables and coffee stations alike exude calm confidence, the design whispering, “You have everything you need to take on the world! You got this!”
This authentic encouragement explains the duo’s success on Instagram, Netflix and now in publishing with their second book, “The Home Edit Life: The No-Guilt Guide to Owning What You Want and Organizing Everything.” This book supplements their bestselling first, “The Home Edit: A Guide to Organizing and Realizing Your House Goals.”
Moving away from more extensive projects, this second book provides readers with minor, more discreet organizational challenges like junk drawers, mountains of sports equipment, or preserving and displaying beloved collections. And by the way, you’re allowed to have collections, say Shearer and Teplin, but if your treasured items are not well preserved and displayed, they might as well be in the trash already. Instead, they show you how to organize and honor your possessions in small ways in every part of your life.
This second book also has the benefit of being written after the organizers became successful because, mixed with everyday families, many of the beautifully photographed spaces are those of celebrity clients. Yes, I want to see Tiffani Thiessen’s fridge, which holds her chickens’ fresh eggs. I want to see Dwyane Wade’s shoe collection in perfect lines and the baby clothes hung by color in Mindy Kaling’s nursery. Seeing a place for everything and everything in its place, realizing that everyone has organizational challenges, can be soothing and inspirational.
In the end, the authors hope readers find ways to live with their stuff—instead of feeling shame about it—and create personalized organization that makes their lives easier and their worlds prettier.
