From “Glorified Storage Space” to Functional Home: Organizing Pro Tips from New York at Home’s Diane Lowy

By Grace Cassidy For many New Yorkers, the arrival of spring means more than enjoying the sunshine and milder temperatures. It’s our long-awaited chance to escape the clutter that commandeers our homes each winter. For New Yorker and home organization guru Diane Lowy, springtime is go-time! Diane Lowy A native of Washington D.C. who’s lived in NYC for 25 years, Lowy is the founder of New York at Home , a consulting practice for helping busy urban professionals to organize and manage their living spaces. Having studied art installation at Bard College and construction project management at New York University, she went on to manage corporate workspaces for Google, Chanel and other companies before turning her focus to the home. We spoke with Lowy about how she started her business, how she makes spaces more functional, her favorite home organization products and the emotional investment we have in “stuff.” When did you realize that home organization was your talent and how did you turn it into a business? In 2014, my partner had minor surgery a few days before we moved apartments and was unable to pack or unpack a box. I coordinated movers, organized packing, handled unpacking… and our new one-bedroom apartment was completely set up before going to bed that first night. I didn’t think anything of it since I had coordinated moves for work for years, but apparently, this is a rare skill! In 2016, when a new job didn’t turn out as expected, I brainstormed with my friend Bob about how I could leverage my years of experience making large-scale spaces work for organizations into a business where I could have a direct impact on people. Bob told me how helpful it was when he moved to New York to work with someone who helped him set up his apartment—a professional organizer. I left my job and told my friends and anyone who asked that I was a professional organizer. I offered to help a few key people in exchange for being allowed to take photos and having them write reviews of my growing business. What does a typical project look like from start to finish? A new project always starts with the client. We have a strategy session to understand the scope of work and plan the project. I get to know about how you live, your priorities, what is working and what isn’t. Together, we decide what space is the best place to start. I take some measurements and inventory and put together a plan that matches your aesthetics and needs. Some people are more hands-on, and others are more hands-off. For people who are more hands-on, we work together to edit a space before organizing it. For people who are more hands-off, we make recommended edits as part of the process, leaving items aside for review between sessions. Every item gets two to three touches before a room is complete. Take something basic, like socks. As a first touch, socks are sorted into piles by type. Structure is added to the drawer. The socks are then checked for wear-and-tear, and if they make the cut, they’re folded nicely. This is the second touch. If the drawer is too full or an alternate location works better, that’s the third touch. More people who are reaching out to me for the first time are looking at their home as a whole. My recent projects have included helping a client settle into a renovated brownstone, working with another client to downsize from two homes to a new smaller space, and several clients are in the process of refreshing four-bedroom apartments. I often work with clients after they have worked with an interior designer to provide a similar level of detail for personal belongings. I have a reputation for making it easy for my clients to delegate large personal projects. How has the pandemic impacted your business?  Having a functional home has never been more important, but we are asking our homes to do jobs they were never designed to do. No one moved to New York City to cook 21 meals at home every week. During the more intense times, I was working exclusively in the homes of pre-pandemic clients—mostly alone when they were elsewhere. It was much less common for me to be the only one in a home before 2020. I also found new ways to support people from home by offering virtual group and private coaching, writing frequent newsletters and recording podcast interviews. Post-vaccine, I’ve put more emphasis on getting donations directly into the hands of people who could use them. What are some of your favorite stores for home organization products?  I am most familiar with the items at The Container Store and am in the store several times a week. Some organizers have a signature look, but I always match my clients’ interior design. Unless I am solving a special situation, it’s my only destination. That said, I love finding the perfect thing! I set up a kitchenette in the fall and had the best time sourcing from Etsy and local shops like Coming Soon and Whisk . If you have a tiny kitchen, you have to check out JosephJoseph for space saving designs. Food52 is my first choice for elevating the look of kitchens and bathrooms. The rounded edges of Open Spaces are supercute, and I love that they use sustainable materials. Poppin has a similar style for office supplies. If angles are more your style, Yamazaki has everything from pet food bowls to tiny trash cans in everyone’s favorite colors: white and black. Most New Yorkers want to save closet space for clothing, so investing in a laundry basket pretty enough to keep in your bedroom is a must. My favorites right now are from Connected Goods and Closed Mondays . There are so many great products available on Amazon that it can take forever to find just the right thing in just the right size, so I treat them as a last choice. The products are often less expensive, but you pay with search time. Wow! Who knew I had so much to say about this? It’s just so satisfying to have the perfect home for an item. But one of the misconceptions about organizing products is that you can store more with the right container. You can actually store less, but it is more accessible. Just because something fits doesn’t mean it functions. Just because it’s more efficient to move a sofa vertically doesn’t mean you can’t sit on it in that position. What are your top three favorite home organization products? Being organized is pretty basic. It’s being able to find what you need when you need it and then being able to put it back just as easily. You know what is a great cheat for this? Needing to remember fewer things. Put a label on it. Get a label maker. Don’t bother getting a big fancy label maker. The Brother P-Touch M95 is about $25 and runs on batteries. It’s the one I use most! (I also own a $300 label maker with an app that prints a label as wide as packing tape, but it’s literally my job to make labels every day.) Deep spaces—like the cabinets above the fridge, under the sink or in a weird corner—are really tricky to maximize. I love a really big Lazy Susan (18” in diameter or larger) to make the most of this kind of space. There are some really fancy ones with built-in pizza-slice-shaped bins, but those are rarely necessary. The Container Store has clear stackable bins in several sizes, but the ones that are 18 inches deep make these deep shelves useful. What are some of the common struggles that your clients face before you come in to help them organize their spaces? Anxiety and frustration. Everyone has systems in place for managing their time and their space that function but could function better. Everyone has a different tolerance for these moments of frustration. Most people find me when one area of their home is causing them enough anxiety and frustration that they bring it up with a friend who recommends me. Sometimes that friend is Google. The systems have been working, so I start by learning about these parts and try to build on them instead. Some people need to see things to remember them while others need everything to be away. Some people feel like they are doing everything themselves, so adjusting systems to enable the whole family to help can be a game changer. It’s common that people have spaces—like a closet or a dresser or a bookcase—that they haven’t touched for a long time because they have gotten out of hand. When you admit that the things in these spaces aren’t worth this prime real estate, we can relocate or donate almost everything. The space becomes incredibly valuable for items used every day. New York City real estate is too valuable for your home to be a glorified storage space. When you have a bookcase with a second layer of books behind the books with spines you can read, it fits but it doesn’t function. Your storage spaces should be supporting the life you are living. New York City real estate is too valuable for your home to be a glorified storage space. You might think you are saving money by keeping 24 rolls of paper towels in your coat closet, but if your coats end up on hooks in the foyer, making it hard to open the front door, have you solved a problem or created one? Do your clients end up getting rid of truckloads of stuff? Making your space functional isn’t about getting rid of things but knowing what you touch every single day and making those things super accessible. Many of my clients have a good ratio of stuff to space, so when I move things around, they become easier to use. If you look at your most frustrating space and relocate items you touch less than once a month, you will be amazed at how much more you enjoy accessing the things you use all the time. Those shelves at eye level and within easy reach are the prime real estate of storage! Have you ever hired an organizer? Maintaining an organized home is a much more common skill than setting up functional systems. And just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should. It is an investment in your future self. I have this skill, and I hired one of my collaborators, Sandy Busken, a few months after my mother died. I was so grateful to have a professional there with me because there was stuff behind the stuff that I didn’t want to do alone or with a family member or close friend. It’s easy to get too close to our own space and things. Another organizer hired me to help her see her home through fresh eyes. It can be all you need to make changes for yourself, or you might want someone to do it with you. What is it like for you to work with people on such a personal aspect of their lives? I’m very lucky to have my business be referral based. I often connect with people at a time of transition when they are facing a change head on. My clients honor me by asking me into their homes to help them care for their belongings. Being able to help people live better lives through the mundane is incredibly powerful.