Time to open the windows, dust off the pillows and welcome in spring. A busy time of year situated between the holidays and summer vacation, spring is the season many choose to make updates to the home. From taking stock of old inventory during spring-cleaning to embarking on a full-scale kitchen redo, the way you choose to renew your home may be minimal or more pronounced. Either way, a renewed home can bring on fun projects that help lift your spirits with a sense of organization and aesthetic appeal.
Organized Impressions, Home Staging & Organized Interiors
Home of Ryan & Amie Lannes Scully, Old Metairie
Photographed by Luke McCoy
Organization & Spring Cleaning
Spring cleaning is one way to renew the home and adding some organization to your life can be more than convenient – it can alter your entire outlook and improve your own efficiency as you navigate through life.
Organization is the expertise of Nadine McCoy, founder of Organized Impressions, a full-service home organization and home staging company. Organization services include decluttering and organizing a space, and the company also offers a moving-in service of unpacking, organizing and styling a space. Their process includes an in-home consultation, followed by decluttering and categorizing, space planning and measuring and, finally, purchasing and implementing.
The company recently helped a client with a problematic, gloomy laundry room that had become the home of everything from laundry supplies to garden tools and paints.
“The client simply didn’t know how to get started and how to make the room not only less dark and dreary, but actually a room she would want to be in and get the laundry done,” says McCoy. “We came in, helped the client declutter and from there we decided on a better space plan and what type of storage was necessary to get the job done,” she says. Organized Impressions chose colors the client loved and added both a new light fixture and organized storage to create a beautiful, functioning space for washing, drying and ironing clothes.
If you’re considering a renovation to the home and know you need better storage and organization, experts like Don Wise of Louisiana Custom Closets can help design a storage space unique to your needs, from master closets and pantries to laundry rooms and garages.
Crystallo quartzite countertop
Fabricated by Pieri Tile & Marble Co., Inc.
Home built by Sanderson Services
Interior Design by Susie Sullivan
Photographed by Mike Lirette
“By organizing storage spaces in your home, you can add space, save time and cut down on stress,” says Wise. Whereas a jumbled stack of shoes on the floor can have you scrambling for those spring flats, customized shoe shelving can show you all of your options, well-lit and even at eye level.
Organization experts note that it’s important to categorize your items and keep them together. With 16 years of experience in organization, Wise can help create proper storage for numerous categories of items and supplies, whether clothes and fashion accessories, or cleaning supplies, pet supplies and pantry items. The company uses CAD software to draw and customize the design specific to your home.
While organization is certainly a part of spring cleaning, let’s not forget the actual cleaning part. Some items you clean all the time – we hope – such as the daily dishes and laundry. But some items we let sit for a while because, well, it’s complicated. Feather pillows, antique quilts, special bedding and seasonal clothes like linen and seersucker suits, may all get overlooked throughout the year. This is where cleaning experts like Liberto Cleaners come in handy.
Liberto Cleaners runs a seasonal spring cleaning sale, a great opportunity for addressing those household items that have been sitting out or in storage a little too long, items such as tablecloths, napkins, sheets and pillows, duvet covers, comforters, quilts and afghans. They offer a specialized feather down pillow cleaning service that empties your pillow and delicately cleans the feathers. The feathers are then placed in a new, clean casing.
“It’s like getting back a completely new pillow,” says Lauren VanCamp, Manager and Owner of Liberto Cleaners. “Once you sleep on a clean pillow free of allergens, you wake so refreshed,” she says.
According to VanCamp, the traditions of the city call for seasonal cleaning. When spring arrives, we pull out our white linen and our seersucker. VanCamp recommends having your seasonal clothes cleaned before you store them away, as sugars and food reside – that drop of wine or bourbon from your mint julep – will invite munching by the tiny, invisible creatures that exist in the home. Avoid yellowed linens, stained fabrics and tiny holes by having them cleaned right after their seasonal use, she says.
Louisiana Custom Closets
Home Updates & Renovations
While cleaning and organizing a space will certainly make it more livable, you may have reached the point where it’s just not that lovable anymore. The flooring or lighting is outdated, your countertops are too small, or you’ve got no room for the kitchen appliances that would up your cooking game exponentially. When your home has you sighing rather than smiling, it might be time for a little spring renewal that will set you up for years of satisfaction.
“For existing spaces, changing your lighting can be one of the simplest and most affordable ways to update your space,” says Heather Somers, Owner and Lead Designer at Élan Studio Lighting and Élan Studio Design. “The right fixtures combined with the right color temperatures and placement can all greatly affect the outcome of your space,” she says. Lighting essentially completes the story of your design. Whether by a classic chandelier or more contemporary fixture, the lighting of your room can alter the feel.
Somers says it’s important to consider proportion and when it’s appropriate to make a statement with an oversized piece. Trends in lighting and fixtures are moving away from oil-rubbed bronze as the darker finish option and towards a matte black finish. The finish is seen as both modern and traditional and can work in a variety of spaces.
If you’re planning a big update, like a kitchen or bath overhaul, you’ll want to make sure time is on your side. Choosing and installing materials like tile and stone, whether for flooring, a wall or a countertop can take time to get right. From finalizing selections to ordering materials and going on the install schedule, make sure you don’t rush any one part of this important and often budget-heavy process.
“As experts, we’re diligent about each of these processes, which usually require more time than anticipated,” says Dina Chevalier, Manager at Pieri Tile & Marble. When you’re ready to take on updating your tile and stone finishes, keep in mind that they are often the more costly and permanent pieces of your kitchen and bath’s overall palette. According to Chevalier, if you tend towards a more neutral palette, you’ll not be locked in to one décor style over time and you can enjoy more flexibility with the rest of your accessories and fixtures.
If you’re tiring of your granite and travertine, Chevalier notes a rise in marble, quartz and quartzite as the trending stones of choice.
“Being able to have the tile (floor and wall) and stone slab (counter tops) selections together in one showroom makes final decisions a whole lot easier,” says Chevalier. She adds that using expert installers will also make the process smoother.
Iceberg silver calcite countertop
Fabricated by Pieri Tile & Marble Co., Inc.
Home built by Sanderson Services
Interior Design by Susie Sullivan.
Photographed by Mike Lirette
At Marchand Creative Kitchens, Certified Kitchen Designer and Sales Manager Chris Licciardi recommends narrowing down your wants and needs before speaking with an expert. With online sites and apps like Pinterest and Houzz, it’s easier than ever for homeowners to find examples of what they like and what they don’t. Armed with this information, your process will go much faster.
“The more you can choose beforehand, the more relaxed you’ll be as you go through and approach deadlines. You’ll be prepared for those things,” says Licciardi.
Licciardi echoes the rise in quartz and quartzite countertops as homeowners are seeking more durable and less porous stones. With these stones, you can have the color of Carrera marble without worrying about stains from food and beverages.
Licciardi says more people are updating their kitchen with the intent of not only making them more universal, open and user-friendly, but also making them suitable for aging in place with larger aisles and more countertop space.
While technological updates tended to be TVs and computers in the past, we’re also entering a new wave of advanced or cutting-edge kitchen appliances, everything from smart refrigerators to steam ovens. If you’re updating a kitchen in this day and age, you’ll also want to consider the appliances that will give you the best bang for the buck. Licciardi recently replaced his microwave with a steam oven, and he’s enthusiastic about having this new versatile way of cooking and reheating food.
Will renewing your leftovers with steam technology be part of your home renewal? Maybe, maybe not. But if you spring into action now, you might just have the new kitchen up, running and ready for preparing a feast by Easter Sunday.
RESOURCES
Organized Impressions
421-2569
OrganizedImpressions.com
Louisiana Custom Closets
885-3188, (985) 871-0810
LouisianaCustomClosets.com
Liberto Cleaners
4814 Prytania St., 897-2161
LibertoCleaners.com
Élan Studio Lighting
1509 Metairie Road, Metairie
267-2792
ElansSudioLighting.com
Pieri Tile & Marble
3622 Toulouse St.
488-1509
PieriTile.com
Marchand Creative Kitchens
3517 Division St., Metairie
888-0695
MCKitchens.com
