When 45-year-old Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria wanted to move her two-year-old son from his nursery to a new room in her Hollywood home, she turned to Clea and Joanna as so many of her friends had recommended the ‘organisational gurus’
Stand aside Marie Kondo, two new queens of decluttering are putting British homes in order.
And ‘order’ is the right word, as the trend for rainbow bookshelves – where titles are arranged by the colour of their spines – is one of the trademark methods of Clea Shearer, 38, and Joanna Teplin, 41, the gurus from Nashville, Tennessee, who call themselves The Home Edit.
They apply the same colour-coded regime to wardrobes and even fridges, and have won legions of fans from work-from-home employees seeking attractive backgrounds for video calls to the houseproud now finding time to put their clutter in order.
Their TV programme, Get Organised, has become a surprise hit – it’s one of the top ten shows on Netflix in the UK – their Home Edit Instagram page has 3.6 million followers and they have a lucrative sideline in branded see-through containers, such as a £22 shelf for baked bean tins.
Joanna says: ‘The rainbow sums it up – a visual label that assigns something a very specific spot in a space.’
Here we see how the pair have re-ordered stars’ closets on TV – and what we can all learn from their techniques.
Eva Longoria
When the 45-year-old Desperate Housewives star wanted to move her two-year-old son from his nursery to a new room in her Hollywood home, she turned to Clea and Joanna as so many of her friends had recommended the ‘organisational gurus’.
The task involved organising his wardrobe, which includes a miniature Dolce & Gabbana tuxedo, toys, medicines and books. Eva was overjoyed by the transformation and rainbow display of books, saying: ‘Can I hug the closet?’
Khloe Kardashian
The reality star, 36, who says she has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder tendencies, is a big client of the pair, joking: ‘I should marry them.’
They have regimented her larder, placing all her food in plastic containers like a sweet-shop, designed a car park for the fleet of mini-vehicles owned by her daughter, True, two, and even ordered her vast collection of wigs, in colour order, of course.
Khloe Kardashian, 36, who says she has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder tendencies, is a big client of the pair, joking: ‘I should marry them’. Her organised glam room is pictured above
Gwyneth Paltrow
When Clea and Joanna were invited to Ms Paltrow’s home in the Hamptons, New York, they said they were thrilled to ‘organise our favourite playroom of all time for one of our favourite people of all time’.
They added that arranging her teenage children’s room was ‘the most fun days of our life.’
The duo were asked back to sort out the 47-year-old’s pantry, which they made ‘light and airy’ with white, wood and glass products.
When Clea and Joanna were invited to Ms Paltrow’s home in the Hamptons, New York, they said they were thrilled to ‘organise our favourite playroom of all time for one of our favourite people of all time
Reese Witherspoon
The actress invited Clea, left, and Joanna, right, to organise her wardrobe after spotting them on Instagram.
She told them: ‘My dream, dream, dream project is that you guys sort out my memorabilia from all my movies, my dresses, clothes, costumes, pictures, everything.’
They arranged three zones for Legally Blonde; TV’s Big Little Lies; and red carpet gowns, all laid out by colour.
‘It’s a memorabilia paradise,’ Reese, 44, cooed. While Clea admitted: ‘We may or may not have tried on your slippers.’
The actress invited Clea, left, and Joanna, right, to organise her wardrobe after spotting them on Instagram
How to organise your life the home edit way
1. Purge: When you see an item, you feel pleasantly satisfied – hooray, it gets displayed. If you feel glad you have it, keep it stored safely in a container and label it. If you keep forgetting you have it but are going to remember to use it this time: OK… but the six-month clock has started ticking and if it hasn’t been used by then, it has to go. Everything else must be thrown out.
2. Categorise: This is key to the process. Once you put things together in their zones or colours, you’ll see what you need to keep and what you don’t.
3. Contain: Some people like baskets, others prefer jars or containers. But it’s imperative that whichever container you choose, it holds just one category of item. Without containers, the whole system falls apart.
4. Label: Identify your containers: This is vital. After all, you don’t want to put your pasta in the snack bin.