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Organize Your Home for Summer - Summer Organizing - Peter Walsh
The design expert shows a Midwestern family how to lighten up and enjoy the season.
By Meredith Bryan
O, The Oprah Magazine  |  From the June 2011 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine
Messy, cluttered kitchen counter Photo: Saverio Truglia
A Chaotic Catchall...

Walsh has been enlisted to help "summerize" Tobin's house—in other words, to de-clutter, add storage for winter items, and incorporate a few key brightening accents. As Walsh sees it, the problem is that much of the family's stuff has no permanent home. Since no one knows where to put anything, it spreads across all available real estate (the coffee table, the counters, the floor).

The kitchen, where Tobin mans her laptop and prepares meals, is the family's hub, but when Tobin enters it each morning, she feels panicked. Bills go unpaid, jury summonses ignored. She is perpetually behind and overwhelmed. "When the house is clean, I have this feeling of freedom," she admits.
Printed from Oprah.com on Friday, May 24, 2013
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