I always envisioned nesting as that final stage of pregnancy when the expectant mother camps out in the nursery, cleaning with OCD fervor and meticulously folding onesies across the surface of her swollen belly. This is not what happened to me.

I opened my eyes one Saturday morning somewhere in the middle of my second trimester, and before I even lifted my head off the pillow, I startled my husband awake by declaring, "I hate this room." It had begun. Making over the bedroom was the first in a series of nesting home improvements I had to make before I could get to the blissful newborn-clothing-folding step of making room for baby.

With its easy-to-close door, the bedroom had become a hideout for all our crap — clothing poured out of the closet and shirts and jeans without drawer space sat in homeless piles on the floor — but there was no way to shut the door on the fact that the room would not work once baby arrived. The plan was to have baby sleep in our bedroom for the first few months, but there weren't enough clutter-free feet of floor space to place a basinet. The situation felt hopeless, and as the day wore on, I became inconsolable.

It was my mother who, during a hormonal and tearful conversation, decided what I needed was a professional home organizer. It would be her treat — a first gift to the baby (and me). At first I resisted her generosity; what kind of home editor would I be if I couldn't even find storage solutions for my own apartment? Pride, however, was not going to fix the situation. I needed outside help. The next day, my mom emailed me a list of local home organizers and told me to pick one. I looked through their websites and selected Deb Ghiglieri of Get Organized by Deb [1]. From our first phone conversation, it was clear that we had great chemistry.

We scheduled an initial session, and while I had high expectations, nothing could have prepared me for how effective Deb would be. Over the course of three three-hour sessions, Deb helped us fall back in love with our bedroom and freed me to get on with my nesting.

Here are the six shockingly simple yet effective ways a professional organizer helped me regain control of my bedroom clutter:

• Used Her Fresh Eyes to See New Storage Opportunities in the Closet: Where we saw the same old clutter, Deb saw space for a second rod to be installed, effectively doubling our hanging storage space.
• Refolded All the Clothing in My Dresser to Create More Space: The first thing Deb did was also the simplest. She unfolded and refolded everything in my dressers using a narrow-profile folding technique and then arranging the pieces using a vertical stacking method. The result was magical; newfound drawer space appeared seemingly out of thin air!
• Knew Exactly What Storage Products to Use Where and For What: Deb measured the space under my bed, strategized which pieces would fit the best, and then picked out the specific plastic rolling containers she knew from firsthand experience would work the best. There was no guesswork or frustrating trial and error. Just a problem solved.
• Provided a Supportive Presence That Increased Productivity: There's something about having an outsider bearing witness to your cleanout efforts that makes them more effective. Not only was I more willing to toss old pieces, I was also able to focus more effectively with supervising. Plus, her encouragement made parting with things more fun than sad.
• Customized Storage Solutions to Our Individual Lifestyle and Needs: Deb wasn't just concerned with hiding the mess. Her goal was to help us find long-term storage solutions. She worked with us to tailor the organization efforts to our lifestyle, and then, based on how things were going, she worked with us to tweak them during her second and third visits.
• Got Us Past Our Overwhelmed Clutter Paralysis: Having Deb get us started and through the worst of the mess got us to a place where we actually started liking our bedroom again. After just her first visit, we started taking more pride in the space, and it showed in the way we worked to maintain the changes she made. We even found ourselves inspired to take on other organization projects around the house!