- Hi, everyone planning decluttering and organizing your rooms before a home renovation project begins can really make for a successful outcome. I'm Louise from Perway Construction Services. And today I've got the lovely Taryn and Kirrilee from Queens of Clutter to assist us with some of our queries about organization and decluttering before a renovation begins. So, hi guys. - Hello. - Hello. - Would you like to tell us something about yourselves and about Queens of Clutter and kick us off? - Yes, certainly. Thank you for having us. As mentioned, we're sisters and we got into this just over two years ago now, like completely by chance we both happened to read the same sort of decluttering book by Marie Kondo and liked what it said. We both sort of bit by bit went through our own houses, helping each other, and one would look after the kids while we did a room. And then we'll just always talking about it and our friends sort of way, oh my God, my pantry or oh god, I've got a junk room. And so we'd go around and help them. And people kept saying to us, "You guys need to do this as a business." And of course we both work part time. We both got two young kids. We're like, oh yeah, who's gonna pay us for this. And I kept saying it and we thought, you know what let's just give it a shot. We've just recently put on two people South of the river to help us out with our growing market down there. So there's four of us now and we're loving it. - Oh, that's great. 'Cause that's how I first found out about you. A few months ago, we were looking to do some decluttering in our carport. And it had been a big mix of junk between camping gear and we had previously moved house Andy had his construction gear and Taryn came and assisted me with getting rid of the junk and really sorting it all out. Like what benefits would you see then in decluttering and organizing before renovating? - I think not only just before renovating, but even as you said, just when you're normally living in a house that's huge benefits but particularly before you renovate I mean, decluttering is gonna save you time. It's gonna save you money and it's gonna make the whole process just significantly less anxious when you declutter the excess stuff out of your life that you don't need, then you don't need to move it. So in a renovation you don't need to then pack it. You don't need to store it. You don't need to find it again in the meantime. So the less things you have, it just makes it easier to move them, and it makes them easier to find them. When you are in the process of a renovation it's also gonna save you money because you don't end up buying things that you thought you had or that you've lost, or that you couldn't find or that you've got stored where you can't get them. And it means that you've got more space for the things that you do like and particularly during and renovation, it means that you're not then trying to cram everything back into the space after you've renovated it. You've actually got this beautiful space that you've spent this time and effort renovating. And then when you unpack everything it's actually going to represent you and look amazing as well. - Yeah, now that's definitely I think a big thing to consider is, whenever somebody is having a renovation done it can be quite disruptive. And either the people that might stay in the house or else they might move out. And either way. You're not gonna have access to that space that your work's being carried out in and so what tips would you say or how would you advise people to declutter and organize a particular room or a whole house. If they are getting that renovation done for a short period of time or even at a substantial period of time how would you advise to organize and declutter? - The basis of our business is basically if you don't love it or it's not useful, it shouldn't be in your house. So whether you're doing a room or your whole house, start with that process look at your items and think, well, yeah, do I love it? Or is it useful to me? Start small, start with a drawer or a shelf or start with big items. What can you get rid of that gets the process started really. And that's why people get stuck, is they don't know where to start. But again, if you've got a renovation or a move coming, you have to get started at some point. So start with the easy stuff. Don't go straight to the sentimental stuff, start small and just get started. That's sort of the biggest thing that you can do really. - Yeah, that's the thing just try and start in advance, like don't start decluttering and packing up for a renovation like three days before it starts, like starting six months in advance when you start planning a renovation. 'Cause if you can start getting rid of excess furniture and clearing out extra rubbish or things that need fixing or things that are broken it gives you a chance to donate those things properly or sell those things and maybe make a little bit of money. And then you can maybe put into storage the things that you love and the things that are very useful that you had a need during the renovation. Then it only leaves you those things that you need access to. And you can then put those into either a room that you do have access to or you can take them with you if you're moving out. - In terms of storing items, how would you advise then to organize those items for a particular room if you're decluttering and organizing them into boxes is there any tips or advice as how you would store them? - Label everything and be detailed. Don't just put kitchen, put pots and pans, kitchen, things like that. I've moved a number of times with my job. And in some cases the company pays and these guys just put kitchen or bedroom. So, when you unpack that night and hubby wants to find the TV remote or you need sheets to make your bed, you don't wanna go through 15 boxes, labeled bedroom, put linen cupboard, king size sheets, things like that just specific as you can. And again, if try and put the stuff that you use every day or multiple times a day, keep that literally, we always had one box that was the last thing to be packed. Like the phone chargers would go in there, the TV remote screws for the bed, the things we knew as soon as we got to a new place, - Coffee. - Coffee. - the essential items As soon as you get to a new place you're gonna be like, right, we need this, this, this, this. Have one box set aside for that. Otherwise just lots of detailed labels on everything. - And apart from the very small essentials you're gonna need immediately otherwise then pack similar things together because that's what we often find when we go into homes is there's nothing is in proper categories. So people will have, for example, towels in like 17 different places in their house. So, if you are packing or if you're moving or even just in everyday life if you can keep all your towels in one area it actually just makes life easier. - No, no, that's really great tips there. Have you come across many customers that find decluttering challenging? - Yes, almost all of our customers find decluttering challenging. Otherwise they wouldn't get us. - Yes, there's lot to do. - Well, that's true, but I mean, what would be their biggest challenge in decluttering? - I think there's so many but I think for a lot of people, time and focus. So we have a lot of clients that are either busy, they've got jobs, they've got kids. So allocating the time cause it is time consuming. And then focus, at the end of the day we all know that you start something and then you go off. Someone calls you when you, make a phone call again like it's, so I think for a lot of people, you do need to actually block out a certain amount of time to say I'm going to do this and I'm gonna get stuck into it which is partially why our business works so well is 'cause we keep people on track. So a lot of it is about focus. - Sentimental items can be hard. A lot of people have had things that have been sitting in their houses from parents, grandparents who have passed away, friends. It's a very emotional in that regard. And we also just get people literally crying because they don't know where to start. It seems like such a huge task. And it is just overwhelming because they just don't know what to do which is why they call us. - And we just break it down into small chunks. We put things in categories, we break it up into small chunks. We start with the thing that's in front of us. We just try and make it more bite sized for everybody. So it's much easier and less overwhelming. And we do the easy stuff first and the sentimental stuff lasts. - Yeah, now that's great. Great advice there and definitely I would highly recommend anybody that's listening today to avail of your services. For me, even personally, we had moved in and it was just to get rid of the junk and I found it really tricky because like that I didn't have the focus and I didn't know where to start. And whenever I had called Taryn and she came to my house and Taryn was there, I think for 3-4 hours and those 3-4 hours, it was the two of us working together, Taryn questioned if I had a lot of items, I remember there was one box of camping gear and I had about 20 plastic cups in it, wine cups. And she said, "Do you entertain a lot when your camping?" I said, "No, it's just usually me and the kids and a couple of friends." And she said, "Well, why do you need 20 glasses?" And it's just simple things like that where I would think, oh, maybe I might need them, maybe I don't and it's just even having someone to make you a little bit more accountable or maybe make things more simple that you don't have to think about it and, - Justify your decision out loud to someone. So if it makes people go, oh God that sounds stupid coming out of my mouth, why am I holding onto this? But when your just doing it in your head, it seems fine. Or if you do it with your mom or something, I mean, sometimes friends and family can be there. I'll just keep it. Like it's not taking out much room, but yeah, to justify it to someone who's almost a stranger actually makes it seem a bit more real. - But we're not actually judging you if you wanna keep all of them. But one of the things, people just make better decisions when they're standing next to them. It just, it's the way it works. - So for everybody that is watching you have a renovation or just want a declutter in general, definitely give Kirrilee and Taryn a call and get them to help you just get your decluttering done and get yourself organized and get ready for your project. - And then hopefully once your project is finished it will fill with things that you love. - Exactly, exactly. So thanks very much ladies. And can you just tell us before we finish off where anybody might find you. - We have a website queensofclutter.com or you can find us on Facebook or Instagram at Queens of Clutter. We're pretty easy to find. And we work with North and South of Perth. - Perfect, okay well, thanks very much for your time today. It was great chatting and we hope to have you on again soon. - No worries, thank you very much.