Panache with little cash

Use what you have, tame the clutter and don't spend a lot, says this designer.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF, Times Correspondent
Published October 30, 2007

Transforming a home can help transform a life, says professional organizer and decorator Kim Hazen. She wants to someday turn her business into a ministry to help low-income families and single parents organize and decorate their homes.
	[Stephen J. Coddington | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Stephen J. Coddington | Times] Kim Hazen transformed an empty space beneath the kitchen counter into a storage space for her kids' arts and crafts supplies. The curtains make the area look neat when it's not in use. [Stephen J. Coddington | Times] An old hutch plucked from a fire sale holds Currier & Ives plates from Hazen's mother. [Stephen J. Coddington | Times] An antique dresser from Hazen's husband's childhood is a hardworking showpiece in the living room, where it holds mail, office supplies and scrapbooking materials.

NEW PORT RICHEY - Kim Hazen has a knack that packs a triple punch.

She can organize a home and decorate with panache.

Even better, she can do it on a dime.

Hazen, a 38-year-old stay-at-home mom, lives with her husband, Shawn, 41, and their two children, Lydia and Eli, in a quaint little blue and white house across the street from the Pithlachascotee River in New Port Richey. Out front, a picket fence defines the small front yard decorated with pumpkins and mums to celebrate autumn.

"This area reminded me of Michigan, where I grew up - I love the town itself, the sense of community and all the celebrations that are going on all the time," says Hazen, who moved to New Port Richey from Holiday five years ago.

Inside, she's painted the living room walls sage green and incorporated hand-me-down family furniture by giving it her own touch: she sewed bullion fringe onto a contemporary sofa to make it better fit with her French country theme.

She painted a computer wardrobe to look timeworn and fatigued; a mirror from childhood is bracketed by aged wooden shutters she snagged at a garage sale; an antique dresser from her husband's childhood sports a pretty runner and matching lamps, and a set of rooster prints above, though it actually serves as storage for sorted mail, office supplies and scrapbooking materials.

Fresh home, fresh life

"Your home should be a place that you feel good about, that feels pretty and clean and that you want to come home to," says Hazen, who, five months ago, launched her business, New Life Organization and Design Services. She's targeting working families like her own who want to make their homes look good by getting organized and re-decorating by using what they already have.

Her real dream, though, is to eventually turn her business into a ministry that will help low-income families and single moms both organize and decorate their homes.

"I've prayed hard about this and felt it's something I could do," says Hazen, who belongs to Calvary Chapel Worship Center in New Port Richey. A decade ago, she says, two older women who acted as her mentors asked her to help them decorate the home of a needy family. Hazen organized the house as well as helped decorate with treasures they found at thrift stores.

Later she learned how much such a simple act transformed the woman's life.

Recalls Hazen: "We heard she then turned around and helped her daughter redecorate her bedroom and that the two of them started spending more time together, even eating meals together and leaving each other small notes. It really changed her family."

Hazen believes in using great stuff you already have around the house, and accenting with treasures found on the cheap. She likes to include sentimental family heirlooms and incorporate them into tableaus.

A simple hutch in the living room includes her husband's grandfather's pocket watch, her mother's antique rag doll, along with a few lovely old books and some ears of colorful maize the house is filled with subtle decorations for fall including berry wreaths, gourds and miniature pumpkins.

Chic on the cheap

"Everything we do around our own house is on a budget," says Hazen, who shops everywhere from garage sales to Burlington Coat Factory to the Salvation Army, where she picked up a functional desk for Eli, 12.

At a garage sale, she found four more antique-green dining room chairs to match the four she already had. On the back patio that her husband recently redid by laying brick pavers and building a pergola, she decorated with chairs from the Habitat for Humanity resale shop and an English garden bench picked up on sale. A wicker chest serves as a coffee table, and the gauzy curtains that separate the porch from the yard are her own handiwork, as are all the curtains in the house.

The couple take on about one major project a year. They've redone two of the home's three bathrooms: Downstairs it's bead board, hardwood floors and a fresh country theme; upstairs it's a more modern surfer look for the kids.

The kitchen is next, Hazen says, though they managed to get by for years after she painted the Formica counters and cabinets and added new knobs (yes, you really can paint Formica).

Hazen, who grew up in South Haven, Mich., where she was voted Miss South Haven and Miss National Blueberry, exudes a genuine Midwestern sense of hospitality, offering a visitor cantaloupe, green tea and banana bread (she's serious about natural foods).

She loves antique milk glass and her mother's blue and white Currier & Ives china because it reminds her of the Midwest.

As for her organizing/decorating business, she's taking it one step at a time, just like her household projects.

She already has a small roster of clients and friends to whose homes she's bringing both a sense of order and her own brand of fresh design.

Her dream of helping low-income families create beautiful, organized homes is just around the corner.

"I just need a place where I can take in - and store - donated furniture and household items," she says.

Where and when that will happen, she doesn't know; it's only a matter of time, she explains: "I just know that this is definitely something I'm supposed to do."

Elizabeth Bettendorf can be reached at ebettendorf@hotmail.com.

Kim Hazen believes in the power of a lovingly decorated home. She also believes in the power of decluttering and organizing:

"I used to work as an administrative assistant and I guess because I wanted to please my bosses, I was looking for ways to be efficient and the easiest solutions," she recalls.

She adapted what she learned in the workplace to her home and streamlines all paperwork using a few easy tips:

1. Small plastic baskets fit nicely into drawers and offer an easy way to keep bills sorted. She and her husband each have their own bill basket. Sort mail the moment it arrives by immediately tossing junk directly into the trash.

2. Clear plastic shoeboxes make great art-supply storage for kids. Her daughter, Lydia, 8, is eager to organize her art supplies, which Hazen stores on shelves beneath the kitchen counter that she hides with pretty floral curtains she sewed. Be creative about storage, she advises. An antique chest can serve as a buffet or place to store paperwork.

3. If you have children, use accordion folders to sort and store things like report cards and artwork.

4. Photo boxes make great "memory keepers," she says. "Things from special trips or that you're saving or don't know what to do with but love fit nicely into these. The point is: Don't just set something down. Make it easy to put away.

[Last modified October 29, 2007, 21:35:38]