Closets Come Out of the Closet with Organization

by Bill Primavera

The Home Guru

As Published in The Examiner, The Putnam Examiner and The Yorktown Examiner

The word closet can have several meanings. The one most commonly accepted is a place for storage of clothes.  It can also mean a state or condition of secrecy or carefully guarded privacy. And for some, the two meanings merge together.

While some closet keepers may try their best at tidiness and organization, they -- actually, I should include myself and say we -- would prefer that our dirty little secret, the condition of our closets, stay exclusively with us.

As I show homes on the market, I note that most prospective buyers will open every closet in the house they’re exploring. If a house is properly prepared for showing, all closets are usually beautifully organized, varying most by the amount of clothing or other items they hold. There have been a few cases, however, when clients have opened a mess of a closet and fear that they have poached on really private territory.

Closets that invariably are best organized are those that have been planned by one of the closet system companies, and there are many, both national in scope and small, local businesses.  Whether utilizing budget materials or polished, solid wood and handsome fixtures, these closets are well designed and installed. With their features of perfectly measured shelving, hanging poles at varying heights, shoe racks, and drawers -- there is more incentive to go with the flow. They seem to beg their owners to make use of their basic purpose:  organization.

Surely we would all prefer walk-in closets with a professional system neatly installed, but the plain truth of the matter is that the greater majority of us live in older homes that do not have them.  Instead, we have linear closets, usually six to 10 feet in width, starting out with the basics of a single hanging bar and a long, continuous shelf above it.  It never seems to offer enough space for the average person who dresses herself/himself for work every day.

I happen to be one of those people.  I live in an historic house with no “official” closets.  In the 1700s when the house was built, most clothing was folded and stored in chests. Outer garments were just placed on hooks.  One of our first projects when my wife and I bought this home was to hire a carpenter to tuck in closets in those alcoves created on both ends of a fireplace wall.  My wife and I are lucky in that we have enough bedrooms in the house to make dressing rooms for each of us out of two smaller bedrooms that also include built-in closets.  But even that did not seem to be enough space, so we doubled our clothes hanging capacity in our dressing rooms by making use of the high ceilings and utilizing two wooden hanging bars, one as high as we could reach and the other half way down. That trick obviates the possibility of hanging pants or dresses straight down in some of the closets, but that’s an acceptable trade off.

As for organizing a traditional closet, I don’t set myself up as the model.  In fact, I’m the antithesis of the model.  Mind you, I’m not sloppy about my clothes. It’s just that there is no rhyme or reason to how they’re organized.  My clothes are arranged loosely according to suits, sports jackets, pants and shirts, separated by dress and casual categories.

As for ties, of which I have about two hundred (Seriously - I guess I’m the Imelda Marcos of ties), I’ve devised a massive self-devised tie rack on the back of each closet door in my dressing room and bedroom, made from dozens of old wall hooks.  My wife, Miss Organization that she is, suggested that I arrange them by color, but I have my own system that works better for me.  I place separate hooks for stripes, polka dots (of which I have a preponderance as a polka dot fan), solids and odd pattern ties.

Sometimes I manage to sort my shirts by color group, but that lasts only about a week and mystically they all meld into one patchwork of color and pattern. I suspect that my shirts and other clothing conspire against me while I sleep.  I console myself by saying that by the time I place our home on the market, I’ll get my act together so that I won’t be humiliated by the prospect of potential buyers opening those closet doors. But, I’ll probably need a professional organizer for the task. Then again, I could plead with my wife Margaret to help me do the job.

My wife could throw open her closet doors at any time, prepared or not, to Westchester Magazine, The New York Times, the Journal News and the AP and the UPI (as we used to say when UPI still existed). Here she shares her system  of “ordinary” closet” organization with me for The Examiner’s readers.

“It’s easier to be organized than not,” Margaret explains. “First, I separate by season. Then, according to dress, business or casual clothing. Then, by color,” she ticks off.

“And here are my hard rules for making it all easier from the get-go,” she continues.  “If you haven’t worn an article of clothing during the past 12 months, chances are you won’t wear it during the next 12 months either, so just discard it. If it’s in good shape, give it to charity. And, when you buy a new article of clothing, discard an article in the same category.”  (These last two advisories were given for my benefit, I’m sure, because of my addiction to buying ties, some of which have reached historic collection status).

“Next, ‘display’ clothes so you can see them,” she advises without having to take a moment to gather her thoughts. “Even shoes should be in transparent boxes. If you see them, you’ll wear them.  Other tips: Don’t store anything but clothes in your clothes closet because other items will just collect dust which in turn will fall on the clothes. And, buy the same type of hangers because mixed hangers take up more space.

“Finally, arrange for good lighting inside the closet, which brings a whole host of benefits, including an easier path toward organization.  It can be as simple as one of those new and efficient battery-powered lights.”

Being that wonderful creature known as woman, she throws in a couple of niceties that a man would probably never think of:  “Use scented paper for closet shelves (I didn’t know there was such a thing!) and consider a moisture control container too, to keep everything pleasant.”

I’m ready to follow my wife’s advice, with the possible exception of using scented paper, so that some day soon, when I place our home on the market, my own closet can come out of the closet.

Bill Primavera is a Westchester, NY-based realtor ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and marketing practitioner ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) who can be reached for questions or comment directly at 914-522-2076.

To read more in The Examiner, go to: www.TheExaminerNews.com

Let’s Give a Hand for Those Handymen

by Bill Primavera

The Home Guru

As Published in The Examiner, The Putnam Examiner and The Yorktown Examiner

Handymen are always interesting to me in that they know how to do everything I don’t know how to do.  Having owned two historic homes and participated in the construction of a new one, I’ve hired many handymen through the years, and the memory of them lives on in the work they’ve done.  Am I odd that, when I look at or use any of the handyman projects that surround me, I usually think of the craftsman who did the work?  Am I obsessive about such things, I wonder?

Recently I’ve talked with three interesting craftsmen grouped in the broad category of “handyman,” and while they may use different job titles and come to their trade by different routes, they each seem to share the common trait of absolutely loving the work they do.

Serendipitous Entry for Paul Markowitz

Paul Markotwitz of Somers comes by the profession more circuitously than most. The 36-year-old father of two young children started his professional career as a bonds trader, “but it was the commute from Long Island to Weekauken, New Jersey, that killed me,” he shares. That commute, which involved a car trip to a Macy’s parking lot, a long walk to the train station, the train to NYC, walking from Penn Station to the ferry terminal, and finally a jaunt across the Hudson, took three hours each way. “I did it for a number of years, and it got to be too much,” his says.

His career and lifestyle-altering opportunity came to him serendipitously when an in-law was having construction work done at his home, and Paul offered to build a small house for a newly-acquired dog. “That house was a fancy one that I did mostly for fun. It had molding, windows, carpeting…it was really special,” he relates. “When the contractor saw my work, he asked if I wanted to be a handyman, and right away I said yes. Both my dad and my granddad had great skills and I had always been a hands-on kind of guy, so I thought, that’s one way to out of this three-hour commute.”

Paul says that the switch to being a handyman was the greatest thing that ever happened to him. “First of all, I’m sure that I wouldn’t have a job right now in this economy as a trader. Today I can set my own hours, do pretty much what I want to do and get to be with my wife and kids. Besides that, I’m busy. It’s good, you know.”  Paul says that he does everything for the home from molding, built-ins, doors, and windows, tiling, sinks, and “just about anything you need to have fixed.” What he likes best about his job is that no two days are ever the same.  Paul can be reached at 914-400-4144.

A Steady Route for Carl Olsen

There was never any doubt in the mind of Carl Olsen, 68, that he wanted to be a carpenter, a title he distinguishes from “handyman.”  “Handymen do a lot of other things, but I am a carpenter” he explains.

He pursued a purposeful training program starting with his BOCES schooling in Rockland and serving a four-year apprenticeship after that. He studied both technical work, such as learning to read blueprints, to hands-on applications, building everything from the foundation of a house up, including framing, sheathing, exterior trim, installing windows and doors, sheetrock and anything else in preparation for the work of the plumber and electrician. After the other trades finish their work, he returns to install interior trim and the kitchen

As a matter of full disclosure, Carl happens to be my carpenter, and I can say unequivocally that he does the best work my house has ever enjoyed.

Coming from a background of public relations as I do, what I find most interesting about Carl is his natural and keen sense about marketing himself, from attending every networking meeting of the Yorktown Chamber of Commerce to leaving his cards wherever he can, focused mainly on hardware stores.

A really novel marketing idea he introduced recently is to offer apprenticeships to homeowners who want to help him with the work for a reduced fee. “It’s my answer to the recession,” he says.  “People need work done but they may not be able to afford it right now, so they can work alongside me, learn something and save money.”  Any taker-uppers don’t have to be skilled, according to Carl. For instance, for a deck job, it may involve only the work that an unskilled helper would do, such as assembling and holding up the wood for Carl.

“I love my work so much that I’m always doing projects at home like a busman’s holiday. When I describe what I do, I just say that I like to take things that aren’t so good anymore and make them good.” Carl can be reached at 914-245-6072.

Ken Seeds Influenced by Errol Flynn

Within minutes from the time Ken Seeds walked into my office, I knew that he was operating from a different perspective than most people looking for fixer-upper homes as investments. On the phone prior to our meeting, he had described himself as a house painter, but really a jack of all trades with home improvement, and in my mind I designated him as a handyman, but I felt I had to modify that after a short time in his company to perhaps “artist of the home.”

We began talking about his sense from an early age that his life was destined to follow adventure and to create beauty in his environment.  He would run home from school in Pleasantville to watch the swashbuckling Errol Flynn on the old movie channel of the time. “Errol Flynn had a sense of adventure that I wanted to emulate,” Ken shares. An early work ethic developed from his father’s teachings that his reputation would be based on the quality of work he did and that his handshake was his bond.

Between his sophomore and junior years in high school, Ken followed his natural entrepreneurial bent by creating a house painting business with some of his classmates.  “I learned the trade from the old timers,” he says, “and over time, I added carpentry to my offerings, along with roofing and eventually total house renovations.

“I’ve always felt a special sense of spatial relationships and color within my environment. My mother even had me tested for it. Whenever I walked into a room, I could envision how that room could be more beautiful and practical, from adding crown molding to painting it a more beautiful color or, from a practical standpoint, fixing a leaky pipe!”

Ken explains how he uses this natural gift to work with homeowners today. “For instance, there are hundreds of bad choices that can be made for choosing a color for a room,” he explains. “I know intuitively which perfect color will work in a room to show it to its best advantage.  If a homeowner suggests a bad choice, it’s my job to have her or him see the right vision for the room.”

Ken’s sense of adventure took him to the sea after high school, traveling to the Virgin Islands and then other locations for various jobs from yacht deliveries to boat chartering, then a parasailing business. He showed me a photograph of himself, posed much like Errol Flynn on the boom of a schooner, living the life of adventure he craved from an early age. Now 54, Ken spent more than 20 years, off and on, enjoying this lifestyle.

Today he’s back in the Westchester area, fulfilling his sense of destiny to “make homes beautiful.”  In particular, he’s planning to help homeowners who may be financially stressed or who have a house that may be physically distressed. “I want to partner with them to create a win-win situation,” he says. Ken can be reached at 914-471-3200.

By the way, I tried to identify a handywoman to feature in this article.  If any reader knows of a special handyperson of that gender, please let me know for a future piece.

Bill Primavera is a Westchester, NY-based realtor ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and marketing practitioner ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) who can be reached for questions or comment directly at 914-522-2076.

To read more in The Examiner, go to: www.TheExaminerNews.com

How To Take Care of Beautiful Hardwood Floors

by Bill Primavera

The Home Guru

As Published in The Examiner, The Putnam Examiner and The Yorktown Examiner

 Today’s homebuyer always asks whether a home has hardwood flooring and is particular pleased if we realtors can respond, “hardwood floors throughout.”  While most folks today like hardwood floors exposed, oddly enough, they went through a long period of cover-up.

When I was a little boy in grade school, I remember coming home one day and finding my mother speaking in hushed tones with two of her friends.  “Al and I are having ‘wall-to-wall’ installed next week,” she said.  “Ohhhhh, how nice,” chimed in her friends.

I didn’t know what “wall-to-wall” was, but I was proud that my mom seemed to be the envy of the neighborhood because she was getting it. In short order, the “wall-to-wall” arrived in one enormous roll and was laid out seamlessly in the living room (we didn’t have a dining room).

The texture as I recall was a short shag, and it was chartreuse.  No kidding.  Mother justified the relatively expensive upgrade by telling my dad, who thought it was an extravagance, that it “warmed up” the living room and made it easier for her to keep the place clean. But this is not about carpeting, it’s about hardwood floors, the beautiful, gleaming surface that my mother buried with her up and coming lifestyles choice.

Today, we no longer want warming up. We want clean gleaming surfaces of natural wood that conveys open space, perhaps punctuated by smaller area rugs. If you’re lucky enough to have a quality hardwood floor, here’s the best way to take care of it.

Always use a soft broom when sweeping floors. Hard bristle brooms can scratch the surface. Vacuum the floor at least once a week to remove dirt. It’s better to buy a lighter vacuum for hardwood floors because the wheels of heavier vacuums may scratch.  It’s best to use the soft brush attachment.
You won’t like the way it looks, but there should always be non-slip rugs near all entrances so that family members and visitors can brush off dirt and gravel from the bottoms of their shoes. These small carpets should also be vacuumed regularly to prevent dirt and other debris from making its way to the floor.

Are you annoyed when some hosts ask you to remove your shoes at the door?  Actually, it’s not a bad rule for your own household if you really prize your floors. Or, second best, you can place carpet runners in heavy trafficked areas.  Women don’t wear spiked heels any more (except maybe in re-runs of “Sex and the City”), but even regular heels can be murder in denting the wood.

Furniture needs little booties too in the form of rubber or plastic pads below table and chair legs.  And, never drag furniture across a hardwood floor.

Liquid spills obviously should be cleaned up immediately. Most new floors come with a scratch and dent repair kit that should be kept in a place where you’ll remember to find it. And keep the manufacturer’s instructions on how to use them.

Keeping wood floors clean is a very simple matter. Use only a damp mop. Any excess water can run between the seams and cause damage.

Years ago, it was common practice to use a lot of wax on hardwood floors, but today, most are sealed well with polyurethane and should require only the damp mop process.

In fact, hardwood floors are easier to maintain than that “wall-to-wall” that my mother thought would be easier to keep clean. I remember how disgusted I was when I recently had carpeting pulled up and found that it was a safe harbor for years of dirt below.

A few years ago I visited my boyhood home on a nostalgic trip to Virginia and, amazingly, the couple who bought it from my parents still lived there.

When I was escorted into the living room, the hardwood floors my mother had concealed almost a half century earlier gleamed in the streaming sunlight from the windows with southern exposure.  “We were so surprised when we pulled up the carpeting and found these gorgeous floors,” the homeowner said. “There was this green carpeting that I knew just had to go….”

Bill Primavera is a Westchester, NY-based realtor ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and marketing practitioner ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) who can be reached for questions or comment directly at 914-522-2076.

To read more in The Examiner, go to: www.TheExaminerNews.com

Mold:  A Dark, Dank, but Important Issue

By Bill Primavera

The Home Guru

As Published in The Examiner, The Putnam Examiner and The Yorktown Examiner

“I’ve got to get out of here!” exclaimed my client as soon as we entered the vacant house we were scheduled to see. “What?” I asked. “There’s something in the air here that my allergies can’t deal with. I’m out of here.”  It might have been her perfect home, but she couldn’t bear to give it the benefit of the doubt because she could not tolerate something that was in the air.

I never thought much about mold or indoor air quality until my grown daughter visited my home recently and asked if we could sit someplace other than the living room. She was aware of something that my wife and I had not detected, but she felt that her allergies were acting up in that particular room.  After she left, I scoured the room, looking for any signs of mold and, sure enough, in a 19^th century book cabinet, I found some antique books that somehow had developed surface mold. Knowing less about mold than I should, I got this sinking feeling in my stomach. What to do?

Every once in a while on my real estate voicemail, I hear a panicked agent asking if any of us knows a good mold remediation service. I’ve seen real estate transactions fall apart when buyers were scared off by an engineering report indicating the presence of mold. Because of my limited knowledge about it, I decided to ask a professional.

I looked in the yellow pages and called SERVPRO of Peekskill/Ossining, an independently owned and operated service dealing with fire and water damage, and the remediation of mold. I talked with Denise Comilloni, the owner, and immediately I knew I was talking to a highly-skilled expert who could help me.

“Yes, we can come in to remediate mold, but know that, while some problems can be addressed by us, others that are causing physical problems should be tested by a hygienist,” she said.  “Remember, a mold problem is more difficult to deal with than, let’s say, an aspestos problem, because mold is a living organism. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to mold,” she continued. “For instance, airborne mold spores require different remediation than a surface mold issue, which is more easily removed. But, even if we remove surface mold, it can come back unless the source of the problem can be identified and corrected.  Also, mold may be further obscured if it is lodged in ductwork.”

Denise told me that there are no state laws concerning mold remediation, but there are accepted industry guidelines.  A hygienist tests for mold, but doesn’t do the clean-up. The two functions must remain separate and distinct to keep the process pure from unscrupulous practice.

Mold is a living fungus that thrives in dark and damp conditions, regardless of how warm or cold the temperature.  Most household molds are made of microscopic yeasts and mold spores that cause health problems, particularly respiratory problems, by releasing microscopic spores in the air.  These airborne spores stay alive by consuming nutrients from organic materials such as wood, paper (my books!) dust, and food.

No one did more to make the public aware of the dangers of mold than the talk show celebrity Ed McMahon. Before any of us heard that he might lose his multi-million dollar home in L.A. to foreclosure, that same home made headlines for a massive mold problem.  In 2002, he sued his insurance company for $20 million claiming that it had botched a simple repair on a broken pipe and, as a result, allowed a toxic mold to spread throughout his house, making his family sick and killing his dog.  Indeed this particular mold, called stachybotrus chartarum, is toxic, and the family dog died as a result of a mold-induced infection.  The lawsuit charged that contractors painted over visible mold and failed to provide subsequent environmental reports that the problem had been satisfactorily addressed.

Even Erin Brockovich, made famous by her eponymous movie and no one to be trifled with, also fought against insurers for the mold contamination in her house.

In our own homes, signs of the potential for a mold problem can be chronic leaks or wet areas, a mildew smell, physical respiratory problems that can’t otherwise be explained and, of course, visible signs of mold.

There are some ways to help guard against mold in your own home: fix all sources of leaks; install air conditioning which dries the air out, making it more difficult for mold to survive; check household plant soil, making sure that it is not always very damp; keep firewood outside;  keep the shower floor clean; clean the bottom of the refrigerator and underneath it; and, most importantly, pay special attention to the basement, which is the area of your home most likely to be a problem. To keep it as dry as possible, you may want to keep a dehumidifier there.

If there is a significant amount of mold already existing in your home, it is difficult to remove the airborne mold spores with the methods listed above. Airborne mold spores can continue to reproduce and multiply unless you have an air purifier capable of neutralizing and removing mold spores from the air by emitting negative ions and ozone.

But the best course of action, even if mold is just suspected, is to call a professional service, such as SERVPRO of Peekskill/Ossining (914-788-1950). I was impressed by the fact that owner Denise Camilloni won’t accept final payment for a remediation job until an independent hygienist comes in and guarantees that the job was done right.

It can be a dark, dank business, but once identified, mold remediation is important to your health, and certainly to the sale of your home.

Bill Primavera is a Westchester, NY-based realtor ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and marketing practitioner ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) who can be reached for questions or comment directly at 914-522-2076.