So I’m a designer, I get paid to make homes beautiful and I’m good at it; for myself, its been a much longer process. We moved into our home 3 and a half years ago and have mainly bought furniture pieces here and there for the house. We hadn’t done any work to the house, we were waiting. We like waiting. Apparently procrastination is good when making decisions.

This summer we were looking to expand on our guestroom, that’s off the laundry that was converted from a garage by the previous owners. This is our “fourth” bedroom. It was the size of a closet, so it just fit two beds, so guests were able to sleep there and nothing else. Because it was off the laundry room which was a converted garage, there was no AC. We had a small unit in the window but that will not do in Miami between the months of March – February. Our guests are also usually family so they would come often and stay a while – so we were ready to create a bigger space for them that was more outside of our space. We were originally thinking to move the wall over to make the room 3 or 4 feet bigger and have a smaller laundry / storage room – Ezzy, not me the designer, but the husband of me the designer, said we should just knock down the wall entirely leaving one big open space. This turned out to be an amazing idea, now we have one big, light open guestroom and a spacious and beautiful laundry room /storage room. We feel like we have literally expanded our house and we love being in this space. We love it so much that we are no longer open to having people stay at our house. We need to make a fifth bedroom now for guests #anyideas?

Thanks to Ingrid, we have finished the organizing phase and it feels amazing. Ingrid is very good at what she does. I want to talk a little bit about the difference between Ingrid and Kon Marie. I did the Kon Marie method 2 years ago – went through all my clothing, accessories and books. I did the kids clothing and toys because they’re too young to really know what brings them joy.  And I have to say that from two years ago, I still only have the essentials that make me truly happy. I know exactly where everything is. I also take care of my things better now, Kon Marie is a big believer in “talking to your clothes” at the end of the day and I took that on two years ago. I don’t start up conversations with my clothing but after I wear them instead of hanging them up right away, I lay them out on my bed and let them “breathe.”

The method of Kon Marie is very useful when you need to go through and get rid of things that you’ve held onto for years. The order in which she tells you what to do and the technique of only keeping what brings you “joy” is very effective. However, realistically, I cant get rid of everything that doesn’t bring me “joy”- like my kids make weird shit all day long that not only doesn’t bring me joy but irritates me. I can’t get rid of it, they made it and it’s special to them. So in this realistic lifestyle Ingrid is an amazing solution for figuring out how to find a place for everything that makes you miserable and then being able to easily access it, therefore maintaining the organization. My kids love to take paper, cut it out and make books – so cute right? Wrong – because I have a bunch of tiny useless books that I need to consider whenever I’m putting things away. So after a few days of finding some drawer for these tiny useless books – I start to feel my blood pressure rise. This is when I call Ingrid and say “find a place for your grandchildren’s things so you don’t lose your daughter to mental insanity. ” My kids also love to collect rocks from around our house and call them “treasures.” Even if I don’t agree with it, these treasures need shelter and outside under a garbage can isn’t considered shelter, at least not to my kids. So ultimately I think when one is organizing their home, really knowing and understanding their lifestyle will help tremendously in maintaining a home that feels organized.

Thank you for watching along as I went through the process of #INGRIDYOURSELF. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.