Clara Schoen’s business, The Home Organized, is about much more than eye-catching, color-coordinated snack bins and the eradication of junk drawers. It’s about understanding the needs, pain points and lifestyles of clients to implement elegant, customized and maintainable organizational systems. The result? Highly functional living spaces that bring joy and ease to daily life for The Home Organized’s in-the-know clientele.
After establishing her business in Mobile, Schoen and her family moved to Birmingham two years ago. By connecting with local architects and interior designers, she was able to build on her mostly referral-based business. Today, The Home Organized has five organizers, along with additional services such as moving assistance, luxury assistance and stage-to-sell.
All new clients of The Home Organized start with an hour-long consultation. “We want to know if someone is right or left handed; we want to know about their schedules and habits—we don’t want to do a blanket one-size-fits-all organization,” Schoen explains.
To ensure a home is positioned for seamless functionality from the start, Schoen often works alongside designers, builders and architects in the planning stages—noting it’s ideal to minimize the number of steps it takes to get to essentials in the kitchen, bathroom and closet.
Her eye for detail is apparent when she glances inside a work-in-progress pantry, for example, and notices a row of acrylic bins are not the exact same height. “This needs to be fixed!”
Longtime clients such as Ragan Cain of the lifestyle brand The Frances Flair rely on Schoen for home organization as well as frequent organizational refreshes. Cain has also enlisted The Home Organized to assist with packing and moving.
“We strive to be full service—if someone wants to sell antiques or needs a rug cleaner—we want to be that knowledge base for them. Most people don’t have time for donation runs—things get left in the back of the car. Life moves fast; we want your home to be a peaceful, intentional reflection of you and the way you live,” Schoen says.
For those clients who want a more high-touch approach, The Home Organized offers a luxury assistant who can come in weekly to maintain organization systems. This may include checking expiration dates on foods, re-labeling and re-folding.
Of the initial editing process Schoen states, “We start with the easy things like a pantry before we move on to more sentimental items. Your home isn’t a storage unit for other people’s stuff. It’s your house and your prerogative as to what you want to keep.”
