ShareThisRita Stollman-Levin loves old Victorian houses, but not their lack of storage space. And she has a lot to store: a collection of antique silver and linens, her many books and magazines, and years of paperwork generated by her dual career as a self-employed editor and educator.
"I have all these different identities, and they all come with stuff," she said. After she, her husband and daughter moved from New York City to St. Paul, Minn., a decision inspired by 9/11 and their desire for a more "family-focused environment," her accumulation of stuff moved with them, first into storage while they rented an apartment for two years, then into their current house. "It was wall-to-wall boxes," she recalled.
Her husband, a neatnik, hated the boxes and suggested that they hire a decorator. "I said, 'That's the fun part,' " Stollman-Levin recalled. "I wanted someone to help me rethink my space."
So she interviewed five personal organizers, finally hiring Lisa Wendt of Homes That Work. Wendt challenged her to pare her paperwork ("Do I really need 30 copies of a magazine I edited 20 years ago?") and brainstormed some innovative space solutions, such as creating a laundry area, screened by angled bookshelves, in a second-floor sitting room and installing a medicine cabinet in the hall outside their tiny bathroom.
"Now I have a place for everything," Stollman-Levin said, which freed her to focus on wallpaper and finding storage pieces with a Victorian look. "It enabled me to create a B&B ambience in our home. Lisa brought order to our lives."
(kpalmer(at)startribune.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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