An Honest Review of The Home Edit Life Book
I recently saw some photos of home spaces organized in rainbow order. They looked beautiful and surprising. Who puts their books in rainbow order? The organizers of these spaces were Clea and Joanna, the team from the popular Netflix show, “Get Organized with the Home Edit.” I love helping families find organization tips and home systems that work, so I wanted to learn more about Clea and Joanna’s techniques. Here’s my honest The Home Edit Life book review, as well as my perspective as a mom of five about applying some of these organization tips for families.
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Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin are expert organizers. Their before and after photos of home spaces are inspiring with how stunning they look. The two have a hit Netflix show, a massive Instagram following, and three books. They share tips for organizing your home in their second book The Home Edit Life: The No-Guilt Guide to Owning What You Want and Organizing Everything.
I hope this The Home Edit Life book review helps you decide if you want to read the book yourself. If you do, you can purchase The Home Edit Life HERE, or check your library. (I had to wait several weeks before a copy was available.)
Click image for purchasing information.
Here’s my honest review, as well as a few organization tips for families (especially if you have young kids too).
The Home Edit Life Book Review
The Home Edit Life is a book intended to help people get organized in a way that looks good. In this The Home Edit Life book review, I’ll share some of the positive things I saw when reading the book and some of the negative.
Have you already read The Home Edit Life by Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin? If so, I’d love for you to join the conversation! Use the comments to share what you liked or didn’t like about the book. How did it help you? What other tips would you share with parents who want to get organized?
Pros about The Home Edit Life Book
The book really is inspiring. It’ll get you excited about organizing your home and kids’ stuff. Whether you love organizing already or need a little extra motivation to get going, the book can provide that. Here are some of the positive things I noticed about the book.
Beautiful Pictures
One of the best features of The Home Edit Life is the photographs. There are tons of beautiful pictures, similar to (or the same as) the ones you see on the Home Edit Instagram feed.
Unlike the Instagram feed though, the book has all the pictures arranged by home category. There are chapters for self-care items, technology, traveling or being on the go, work, kids, pets, celebration, necessities (like extra laundry detergent and lightbulbs), and hobbies or collections. This would be helpful if you’re looking for ideas for a specific area of your home.
The Tone of the Book
Additionally, the book has a fun feel to it. The authors’ somewhat eccentric personalities come out in the narration, giving you a feel for their characters and personal lives. The idea to not take yourself too seriously definitely comes across in how Clea and Joanna talk about themselves.
The book includes interesting tidbits in little “True Story” paragraphs, which adds variety to the text. The book name drops a lot, showing the expansive list of celebrity personalities that Clea and Joanna have worked for. If the personal lives of famous people (like Mandy Moore or Khloe Kardashian) interest you, you’ll love those little tidbits.
Perspective on Owning Stuff
One of the stated missions of the book is to give you permission to keep your stuff. This can be a big relief for many people that are trying to tidy their homes. So, if you don’t want to be a minimalist but you still want to be organized, this is a helpful perspective. (If you’re a minimalist warrior, you’ll probably be appalled by many of the collections shown.)
Clea and Joanna share a helpful 80/20 rule in the book to help you determine how much stuff you should have depending on how big your space is.
Cons about The Home Edit Life Book
As a book, The Home Edit life is written well, and I believe it accomplishes its purpose. There are some things about the techniques that I find hard to apply though, especially if you’re a parent like me or many of the families I work with. Here are some of those thoughts.
Function or Form
When it comes to organization, the goal is typically always function AND form, meaning it keeps things organized and also looks good. Sometimes in The Home Edit Life, practical function feels lost in the aesthetic, and for me function always trumps.
For example, this pantry with labeled canisters for everything, including cereal, looks amazing at the moment, but how realistic or functional is it really? What if I don’t want Fruit Loops next week when this box runs out? Do you really always have fudge stripe cookies that need their own container and label? I’m not opposed to just putting the box on the shelf where snacks go. But then again, I’m more about function.
A LOT of Time
At different points in the book, I was asking myself, “Is it really worth the time?” Investing time in organizing and setting up home systems is incredibly wise use of time in my opinion because it’s going to SAVE you time, money, and energy down the road. But sometimes I’m not connecting the details of the Home Edit and rainbow method techniques with the future savings.
For example, they wrote, “It took us eight-plus hours to organize Constance Zimmer’s pantry because we were having such a hard time with its dimensions.” I don’t want to spend eight hours organizing my pantry, and I don’t want to pay someone else to spend eight hours organizing my pantry when it doesn’t have to take that long. If you try to follow all the style of the book, you might end up stressing over unimportant details.
Along the same lines, do kids really need to spend time organizing their Legos by color after they play?
Because let’s be honest, although it looks pretty, it’s going to be faster to simply throw all the Legos into one bucket.
Containers Galore
Clea and Joanna use SO MANY CONTAINERS to get organized. The cost of this can be prohibitive for some. For others, space could be an issue.
For example, in the pet section of The Home Edit Life, there’s a picture that shows a separate container for each grooming item, although at least 15 of those containers only have one item in them. It has a similar feel as this grooming drawer from Instagram. (Unless you’re cutting hair every day for work, the razor doesn’t need this kind of real estate.) You could potentially save a lot of money and space by not using so many containers (but that might disrupt the rainbow feel).
How to Keep It Organized
There’s not much about maintaining the organization system. It’s really good for getting inspiration to initially set-up organization, but there’s next to nothing about maintaining it. For example, as parents, we’re always going to need to teach the kids how to keep things organized. We need more systems, not only set-ups.
I think this is the biggest thing that’s missing from the book. Without a system, all that work isn’t going to last. In fact, later I saw Clea and Joanna on the news talking about organization. Hoda Kotb said this about her closet that the team had previously organized: “Mine is back to a landfill, so we’ll reset again.” That’s what I’m talking about. Back to a landfill because there isn’t a good system in place to keep it organized.
So, while the book can inspire you to get organized and share beautiful ways for your space to potentially look, you’re probably going to need something more to stay organized.
Are you ready for better home systems?
Creating time-saving home systems that work can help you stay organized, save time cleaning, and get your home and life running smoothly. My Simple Systems Starter Guide is a great first step. And it’s FREE!
In general, I think you’d appreciate The Home Edit Life if you enjoy organizing or want to get organized and also appreciate a little personality with your tips. With so many pictures, it’s also a pretty quick read. I hope this book review of The Home Edit Life is helpful for you! Join the conversation about the book and organization tips for families in the comments!
Want more about organizing and keeping a tidy home with kids?
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THIS post is the reason I follow you and buy your classes! I find their book so unrealistic and like that you were so honest about it. Real life just doesn’t work this way except for their celebrity clients who have live in help to maintain it
And sometimes the celebrity clients can’t even maintain it! 😂 But sincerely, so glad you’re finding the realistic approaches you need here.