User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Total waste of time. Glad I did not waste money buying it! Lots of glossy photos including Gwyneth Paltrow's playroom, and organizing "advice" for those with too much money and too much time on their hands. All cutesy baskets and things like glass jars you supposedly put pasta in instead of leaving it in the boxes or bags it comes in. Sure it all looks great on Pinterest but real people don't live that way. Save your money and do not buy. Even if you see it at the library as I did, save your time and leave it on the library shelf! Read a good book or play with your kiddos instead. These two gals got lucky and someone decided they should get a book deal. One of their "hints" is to display dog biscuits in a glass canister on laundry room counter. Yeah, that's real life. Not.
Rating: really liked it
Declutting books are my brain candy reading. This is not a decluttering book per se, but rather organizing decluttered stuff, so close enough.
The photos in here are gorgeous. Drool-worthy photos if you love pretty organization. Visual candy. Lovely layout & printing job too.
But. But. But... the book itself is completely ridiculous, imo. And I even like organizing by color (one of their main suggestions)!
As the impact of plastics continues to be noted (need I say, in a bad way) worldwide, this book encourages you to buy, buy, buy plastic bins for almost everything. And, hey! Don't forget -- vinyl stickers (plastic) are included in the back of the book too. Even if you're fine with that, you need a pretty large budget, I'm guessing, because they say you should buy oodles of organizing pieces (more than you need) w/ the option to return some later. Lots of famous name-dropping throughout, as in, "We did celebrity abc's house, isn't it gorgeous!" and "Wow, we're so in love with celebrity xyz's house, which we also did." (Not direct quotes, by the way, but you get the picture....) I realize we're a media-driven age with "influencers" shilling over-consumption 24/7, but please, grow up already.
As far as actual organizing advice, this book has pretty slim pickings. There are a few notes & ideas, but that's about it. Although they tout solutions for everyone & every space, my opinion is that if you want to achieve even one iota of what they photograph, you need a modern home with pristine white walls, hardwood floors of some sort, modern, minimal kitchens, & practically new [insert every object in your house] in perfect rainbow hues for organizing. No help for those who have folding doors, laminated kitchen floors from the '70s, stained cabinets, old paneling, mismatched dishes, minimal closet/storage space, or carpet/paint/furniture/items that might have seen better days. There's not a lot of "how to" in this book, though they claim to share their process so that anyone can achieve the same results. They are obviously successful with an elite client-base; it also looks like their clients probably didn't need much organization to begin with. (I don't know. Before & after photos might have helped here had they truly worked some organization miracles. Instead, every photo looks as if the clients tossed everything, moved into a new home, & bought all new stuff to be organized in a pretty way.) If they can't clearly elucidate their actual process (which, imo, they don't) & can't make it applicable to everyone (as they proclaim), they shouldn't publish it as a "how to" book aimed at the general public. Instead, they should have omitted the "advice/how to" portion & printed the Instagram-worthy photos as a coffee table photo book for organizing nerds.
Summary: Pretty photos but utterly laughable as an information source.
Rating: really liked it
The Home Edit: A Guide to Organizing and Realizing Your House Goals is a “how-to” home organization guide by Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin of The Home Edit (THE). The tone of the book is casual and relatable, with humor injected throughout. The format of the book is organized by overall editing process, followed by advice for each specific area in the home. The book is filled with pretty pictures and lots of expert tips (
though I admit to finding few groundbreaking).
The quick & dirty THE process is:
1) Take everything out (of the space you’re organizing - and we mean everything).
2) Create groupings (by placing like items together so you can see what you’re dealing with).
3) Pare down (your belongings, getting rid of anything you no longer use or just don’t like).
I’ve been a fan of THE and followed Clea and Joanna on Instagram for a few years now. They’re funny, down to earth, and realize we don’t all live in the sprawling estates of some of their high-end clients. However, we can all benefit from cleaning out and thoroughly organizing the spaces we inhabit daily. Function, aesthetics, and peace of mind are paramount.
I am and always have been a very organized person - I’m a firm believer that there is a proper place for everything and I like coming home to a consistently clean, organized space. That said, it’s always nice to review ideas and see a different perspective.
I recommend
The Home Edit for anyone seeking a little inspiration for DIY home organization projects, which can be tackled one space at a time, and revisited as needed.
Rating: really liked it
If readers need to organize closets full of athletic wear, a cupboard full of nothing but herbal tea boxes, drawers of colored drinking straws, bathroom cupboards stuffed with 50+ tubes of lipstick and other make-up items, a huge storage area for what must be ten Costco boxes of protein bars, and what seemed to be a lifetime (plus) of crayons and markers, then this book is for you. And if you have the time to re-bottle all of your spices into new bottles and paste on new labels, then this book could be right up your alley. And if you have oodles of white drawers and shelves and the money to purchase all kinds of new containers, then get this book ASAP.
As for those of us not into conspicuous consumption and who continue to strive to reduce clutter and keep from buying so much in order to help our budgets, don't bother.
Note: I hate to give a book such a low rating but I found it very irritating. That being said, it does have beautiful layouts and photography.
Rating: really liked it
This whole book can be summed up like this:
1. Get rid of your clutter.
2. Put whatever is left into bins and label it.
3. Take pictures and put on Instagram and then call yourself an expert!
Rating: really liked it
Oh my gosh, thank goodness I got this from the library and didn't waste money on this. No one, and I mean no one lives like this.
When was the last time you sorted your kids toys....ALL the toys by COLOR? yeah, right...never. My personal favorite laugh is a rectangular basket under the hall table, it's divided into 3 sections and each section is for 1 child's backpack. HA! when was the last time (or even the first time) a backpack fit into a 4 inch slot. Yeah, never.
It's lots of cutesy bins and plastic containers. What happened to the reuse and repurpose craze that showed your genius idea for keeping something out of a landfill? That's how we live in my household.
I don't go out and buy a massive amount of plastic containers. Nope.
I was hoping this was going to give some fresh ideas, but it's just a picture book of rainbow colored items organized for the photo. Not for real life.
Rating: really liked it
This book, and the message it sends, is awful. Admittedly, I didn't actually read the book, because I couldn't handle the self depreciating tone of the authors. As I flipped through the pages and looked at the pictures, I kept thinking, "who has this much stuff? And this much space to store all of their stuff?" Once I looked at the captions, I realized this is mostly pictures of celebrities super organized homes, which just made it even worse, because why do we want to encourage people to aspire to this wasteful and unobtainable way of living? Plastic bins everywhere, to hold all of your beauty products, and crazy shoe collection, and your kid's color coded collection of toy cars. Seriously, if you have so much lotion that you need plastic bins to organize them by scent, yes by scent, then maybe you could consider donating some, and certainly never buying another bottle of lotion in your life. This book is a visual collection (with everything in rainbow order!) of the disgusting consumerism that apparently way too many people take pride in.
Rating: really liked it
The Home Edit is a very beautiful book but is highly unrealistic and caters only to a specific audience (upper-middle-class to upper-class women with a large home budget and an oversized house). The book doesn't translate to someone like me that lives in a large city and two bedroom apartment. If I had seemingly unlimited space in my home like Gwyneth Paltrow (whose home was featured in this book), I think many of my storage problems would be non-existent and my space needs would be met. But I don't.
Now, even if I DID own a large house and had a hefty budget to re-organize my home, I wouldn't necessarily do it in the way suggested in this book. There is a great deal of plastic and un-sustainable storage bins and accessories used that would make me feel wasteful AND as a mother of a toddler, many of these arrangements for kid homes wouldn't work in the long term.
Again, really nice photos to look at and dream about but very unuseful.
Rating: really liked it
This is nonfiction on organizing your home. I've read more than a few books on this topic, and this was by far my least favorite. I think she lost me when talking about chandeliers in your closet and putting stuffed animals away by color. Plus the purchasing of so many different things like lined baskets, shelving and anything else you can spend money on to store more stuff. This wasn't my world.
Rating: really liked it
Why would you take kitchen and pantry organizing tips from people who don’t cook? Oh wait, I know the answer: because, by the logic of this book, instagrammabity and pinterestibility above all. Oh, and do buy a lot of clear plastic containers the authors make money of.
And take the same approach to your whole house. Clear plastic containers everywhere, put labels on everything, and get your whole house to be in obsessively rainbow color order.
There seems to be quite a few pictures in the book. At least they were described in audio. But of all the interesting examples, why would anyone care how Gwyneth Paltrow and similars organize their spaces? Just show and describe some pretty and also small space examples; quit the name dropping.
There are no good tips for how to organize small spaces, or organize nonvisually or if you’re disabled. It’s all very roygbiv- and plastic bin focused. These two “home organization instagram influencers” apparently attempt to write humorously (I sped the book up, didn’t find anything funny), and, well, at least they even did the audiobook reading it with their own voices. Big bonus for that! Yet, one of these women (Joanna?) constantly kept laughing at her own jokes. I would like to assume that was their conscious effort in making the book fun and different, but take it from an audiobook addict: don’t laugh on your own jokes, and always take the time to edit out the laughs before publishing. Laughing at your own jokes in a book or even on TV even if you had a fancy show never looks good.
Rating: really liked it
This was so funny and the photos were beautiful and I immediately went and organized like ten cupboards
Rating: really liked it
I've read a LOT of organizing books. Two things struck me about this one: 1.) Putting items in consistently shaped containers and labeling them --brilliant 2.) The homes featured in the book had so. much. stuff. Unintentionally perhaps, this book also told the tale of how the over-resourced are cheerily going about their lives, using money and access inherited via inequality to buy white boxes to place in their blindingly white homes. I did enjoy the book design, though. Lots of white space ...
Rating: really liked it
This book cared more about how the photos would appear than real life. There were four ideas that I'll probably implement, but nothing particularly new. More than anything there were some incredibly stupid ideas, particularly for the bathroom.
Rating: really liked it
As soon as I answered yes to four out of five of the ‘you know you are an obsessive organizer when’ statements, I knew these women spoke my language. And not only are they super duper organizers, they are pretty funny, not taking themselves too seriously and people who amuse are my people.
I didn’t necessarily learn anything new, I’ve been a bit of a neatnik all of my life, but those images of color-coordinated bins, lined up ever so smartly just made me happy and inspired me to take my tidiness to the next level. The photography is light, bright and inviting and even though I’m not a fan of labeling everything (I mean you can see it’s a pair of shoes in that bin, can’t you?), I appreciated how well it all went together.
If you’re trying to get organized and need a little push, this is a practical book with lots of good advice and inspiring images for an orderly life. And for those who made this a resolution, but haven’t quite gotten to it, it’s a great way to kick it off. Thanks for recommending Jan B!
Rating: really liked it
I tried to give this more stars. But who actually lives this way? Its overdone. Too many hideous clear plastic tubs and way too many labels. If I can see its cereal, do I really need to label it ‘cereal’? Same with diapers - no sizes, just “diapers”. It was too much redundancy and simply felt more cluttered than organized.
