A Place for Everything: Organizing the Stuff of Life
Peri Wolfman has been organizing things for a long time. As a child, she kept her clothes neatly folded on a chair beside her bed, deciding it was easier to see everything at a glance that way. Then for many years she arranged striking displays at her noted store, Wolfman-Gold & Good. Here, she peeks into the closets, drawers, and medicine cabinets of willing victims to find answers to organizing the clutter of everyday life. The attractive photographs showcase a fashionable country approach: distressed cupboard doors, old canning jars arrayed on gleaming shelves, collections artfully arranged on a weathered table, timeworn wooden benches piled atop one another to hold books or assorted items, lots of wicker baskets. Also prevalent is a kind of industrial chic featuring banks of wire shelving systems, streamlined kitchens in which even the refrigerator is camouflaged, open shelves supporting row upon row of identical items (fluffy white towels, bottles of water, stacks of white china). If that style has appeal for you, you'll find plenty of good tips on what to do with lots of stuff inA Place for Everything. There are clever tips on how to make the detritus look decorative: family photos, for instance, are adeptly corralled in a commercial postcard display rack; silver cups or other interesting containers hold makeup accessories while adding a touch of glamour to the dressing table; a line of sturdy glass vases on a buffet holds silverware; a grid of corked test tubes makes a nice spice rack.There's really not much here on actually getting rid of clutter; the emphasis is on concealing what needs to be hidden and skillfully organizing the rest. This is not a fix-it-and-forget-it solution--maintaining these arrangements takes some work. "Like a garden," Wolfman tells us, "a closet requires regular tending and care. It won't keep itself in order."--Amy Handy