Client stories
Jody, Northern Rivers, NSW
Jody’s house had been flooded and was being rebuilt. To help fund the rebuild she and her teenage daughter were moving into the downstairs part of the house, which was still a work in progress. She had listed the upstairs on Airbnb and had secured a booking for a couple of months.
My aim was to help her feel positive about the time in the downstairs unfinished space and to help her to create something that was not just functional but beautiful and enhancing as well.
As we talked I discovered she loved to paint so we created a space where she could set up an easel, paints, and a palette. As a creative person myself I felt that supporting her creativity during the time of continuing upheaval would be an important gift to her, and ultimately, her daughter.
Jody told me she could have decluttered and set up the downstairs space herself but she just didn’t have the energy after so much upheaval.
That’s often what is needed: a helping hand to keep you motivated when you feel overwhelmed. It can feel fun to tackle a job together and bounce ideas off each other rather than having things swirling around in your head.
Genevieve, Melbourne, VICTORIA
Genevieve was very competent and accomplished in her professional life. About to take up a new executive role in regional Victoria, she wanted to tackle the stuff that had piled up in three storage units.
When she rang to arrange my help she sounded somewhat panicked. She told me: “I’ve tried to do it myself and I just can’t do it.”
The wonderful thing was as we moved furniture and boxes of papers and items out of the storage units and sorted through them, with a skip bin at the ready, we got a sense of momentum.
By the end of two days the skip bin was full and Julia was feeling a lot lighter and energized.
“Thank you for your hard work and support. I could not have done it without you! You are a master at your craft.”
Angela, Sydney, NSW
Angela had a week to completely empty her father’s two-bedroom unit in a retirement village before she returned to her home interstate. His need for additional care meant he was moving to an aged care facility.
Like most people facing a similar situation, Angela was feeling the pressure, particularly since only three months earlier she had been through a similar process with her mother. She felt stressed and exhausted and she had only just begun.
“Just seeing cardboard boxes gives me PTSD,” she confided.
My first job was to phone a postal/courier company to get a quote on moving some much-loved pictures and personal effects to her father’s new home. Angela was busy taking photographs and posting items of furniture and personal effects for sale online. Her aim was to prevent as much as possible from going to landfill.
As we sorted through each room other items were allocated to the donation pile. Part of my job was taking donated items to various drop-off points. Old towels and sheets went to a local vet; clothing in good condition to a large Salvos; books, some pictures and ornaments to a Lifeline outlet.
Angela also asked me to oversee removalists who were taking some items, including some valuable artworks, to her storage unit. I became a point of contact for people who were picking up items that had been sold or given away; and checked on the work of cleaners employed to get the empty retirement unit ready for its next residents.
“Thank you so much for your help. You have been wonderful and totally trustworthy. I am hugely grateful.”
Harriet, Melbourne, VICTORIA
In her early 70s Harriet was single and her two children lived nowhere nearby.
With a renovation on the drawing board she decided the time had come to cull her collection of books that filled one wall of a spare room. The goal was to let go of most of them and only keep a special few.
“If I want to re-read them I can always get them online,” she said. Within four hours we had sorted through her bookshelves and packed the ones she wanted to move on into boxes to be donated to a local Salvos.
She took the same pragmatic approach to her CD collection when I returned for another round of clearing a couple of weeks later. Next in her sights for a digital upgrade: banks of photo albums and home office paperwork.
“Christine showed great interest in the job and was highly efficient. I booked her again immediately.”
Cara, Sydney, NSW
Cara and her husband had just returned to their Sydney home after living in India for several years. As they moved back into their home they were sifting through items that had been sitting in storage and consolidating things they had accumulated while they were in India. Office paperwork needed sorting, books needed culling, places had to be found for everything from musical instruments to a collection of hats, duplicates had to be minimised, and the wardrobe needed organising to help them feel settled again.
By working steadily for a few hours, we had the bookshelves in order, paperwork was neatly filed, and the wardrobe was looking neat and tidy. There was a pile of old bills and paperwork ready for shredding and bags of donated books and clothing in the boot of the car.
“Christine did a brilliant job with a tidy up of my office and books. On time, thorough, professional, and friendly.”
Bob, Melbourne, VICTORIA
Bob was on the verge of downsizing to a smaller apartment when his daughter asked me to help him with the move. The removalists were coming in a few days and he was feeling overwhelmed with the amount that still had to be sorted, culled, and packed.
His parents had lived through the Depression era and instilled in him values of keeping anything that might come in handy in the future.
For eight hours we worked through each room, taking some items to the rubbish room and some to a donation skip in the apartment complex. A carload of donations went to op shops. Some of the accumulated possessions belonged to different family members. Everything else was packed ready to move.
I then had the pleasure of unpacking and helping Bob settle into his new home.
“Christine was amazing and so helpful, kind, and efficient. Would recommend for anyone.”