Woman launches business to help homeowners organize their belongings

By BECKY KARK Editor and general manager

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Packed kitchen countertops, cupboards, pantries, basements and garages had become a familiar sight to Heather Christensen.

“I have three children,” said Christensen, a Grand Junction resident. “When my third one came along, I was stressing out in my house.”

Heather Christensen

Christensen

The dilemma of keeping track of her kids and her house gave her an idea. She began the process of decluttering her home, organizing it for her husband and three children and then launched a business to help others facing similar situations.

The result of her effort is Worthwhile Organizing LLC, a business she began two years ago. She now has clients throughout Southwest Michigan.

Christensen obtained certification through the International Association of Professional Careers College to become a professional organizer and launched her new business in 2020.

Even though she did so during the pandemic, she has found a steady number of clients since the launch.

“I mainly deal with people in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s,” she said.

They are people who are in the process of moving from a home, moving into a new home, staging a home for sale, or folks who just need help downsizing.

“Nowadays, I think we’ve become accustomed to accumulating too much,” Christensen said.

She’s quick to say her business is not targeted to large-scale hoarders, but rather, average homeowners who feel overwhelmed when trying to organize their belongings.

When Christensen first meets a client, it’s for a three-hour session where she discusses which rooms or spaces the homeowner would like to address. Packages are available for clients who need more time to address their needs to declutter their homes.

“Kitchens and pantries are a big thing,” she said. There’s also closets, children’s rooms, basements, garages and rooms that people use to store items, but would like to convert into usable living space. ... Rooms that are unused can become drop zones.”

She has found over the past two years that although clients want to organize their homes, sometimes it’s difficult for them to do so.

“You have to be brutally honest about your stuff,” Christensen said.

In a number of instances, especially kitchens, her role consisted of working with clients by organizing shelves, countertops and pantries.

“One client had four junk drawers,” she said. Another had to figure out how to downsize her clothing closets and drawers. “She had over 100 sweatshirts and she had already purged some of them.”

Bins and totes often can help people categorize the various items they use on a regular basis, she said, while keeping counter space free for cooking purposes in kitchens.

She’s received a number of positive reviews from clients over the past two years. One woman named told her how organizing her home helped to not only make her dwelling nicer, but motivated her with her own personal life.

“It’s really rewarding to help people because some of them really feel overwhelmed with their stuff,” Christensen said.