Tara’s knack for transforming spaces began in childhood, moving frequently across the U.S. and Europe with her chemical engineer dad, stay at home mom and five sibilings. With each move, whether transitioning between large homes or cozy apartments, Tara was amazed by her mother’s ability to create organized and welcoming spaces in just a matter of days. Her mother’s mantra, “Pack one box and take only what you love,” instilled in Tara a profound appreciation for meaningful belongings and the art of decluttering. After earning a degree in history and fine arts from SMU, Tara’s journey led her from San Francisco to Boston and, finally, to New York, where she pursued a rewarding career in education. Known for her meticulously organized classrooms, Tara soon became the go-to person for helping colleagues revamp their spaces. With her three kids now in college, Tara is thrilled to focus on helping clients create welcoming, beautifully functional homes. In her downtime, she loves visiting her family around the globe with her husband and their spirited Labrador, Bear.
Sharon was born in the US and moved to France as a child, becoming fluent in French. After her formative years in Europe, her family settled in New Canaan, CT. Sharon attended Providence College and discovered her passion for marketing, leading to roles in London, Paris, Frankfurt, and the US.
After earning her MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management, Sharon and her husband, Tom, moved to New Canaan, CT where they raised their two children. She has organized her home, her children's rooms, dorms, and apartments. She has a unique talent for re-imagining spaces and witnessing the positive impact of these transformations. Even in her volunteer activities, Sharon brings her organizational skills to Planet New Canaan's Swap Shop, making it easy for customers to find what they need.
Professionally, Sharon has managed complex marketing campaigns and led projects requiring meticulous organization. From marketing plans to family vacations, there's not much that intimidates Sharon. Her diverse experiences and dedication make her a force in both her professional and personal life!
Ulrike was born & raised just outside Hamburg, Germany, in a small town where her father was a doctor and her mother commanded a household of six. Her parents both came from large families and her childhood was filled with visits to grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
In college, she studied History, French and Design from 1988-1992 at the University of Augsburg and the Fachhochschule Hildesheim where she received a Fulbright Scholarship for Design. From 1994-1996 Ulrike worked as Art Director at The Lacey Group, Minneapolis, MN and she worked as Art Director at Pluzynski & Associates, Inc. from 1997-1999.
After years of dealing with tight deadlines, she decided to focus on her 3 children full-time. Her husband’s career in the Museum World was blossoming and it was a true gift for her to be able to stay at home. Ulrike's oldest son finished college in May 2022, her middle son goes to "The New School" for Classical Music and her daughter is a Freshman in High School. Her passion is Real Estate Investments: She had the privilege of renovating/flipping small Real Estate Investment since arriving in NYC and she considers it a blessing even though it comes with its highs & lows.
Who knew that she would end up raising true New Yorkers, coming from a small town near Hamburg, Germany - all because of her wanderlust and staying open to the unexpected and to embrace the twists and turns along the road.
I started my career as a style editor at Condé Nast, and moved on to be President of a gallery and photo studio in Chelsea.
Most recently, I’ve collaborated with my partner in real estate development and design. We’ve worked on townhouses in Brooklyn, a farm in upstate New York, and multiple beach homes in New Jersey.
As much as I love to work outside the home, the most rewarding and challenging aspect of my life is raising my four children. They’ve patiently moved with us on many projects and tolerated living in multiple construction sites!
I’m thrilled to be part of the Done & Done and to watch the company grow and prosper!
The living room is my favorite space because we have an open floor plan that overlooks Brooklyn Bridge Park and the NYC Bridges. It’s the perfect room to entertain family and friends because while I’m cooking, we can all hang out together and enjoy the view.
People might have guessed that Stephanie would eventually become an organizer. In high school, she kept a record of every outfit that she wore on a piece of paper in her closet! Fast forward several years to when Stephanie met her husband Dan – set up by their respective Croatian families. Six homes, three children + one dog later, Stephanie lives in Connecticut with her husband and their three children. Stephanie keeps busy organizing their two college boys and high school daughter. When not working, she enjoys swimming, rowing, biking, gardening and volunteering with Meals on Wheels, the New Canaan Garden Club, the Congregational Church of New Canaan and Waveny Care Center. Stephanie is very thankful for team members Lise and Louise for helping to bring her on board!
As a young girl growing up in the suburbs of Cleveland, OH Judy would marvel at her grandmother, who every time she visited, would clean out and reorganize her parent’s refrigerator. She inherited the organizing gene and enjoyed cleaning out and reorganizing her bedroom in between school terms. Much to the delight of friends and family she has carried on the tradition of her grandmother by leaving them with the gift of a reorganized linen closet or pantry after her stay.
Judy graduated from Miami University in Oxford, OH with a B.A. in International Relations with a concentration in Political Science and History. She immediately moved to Washington, DC where she lived for several years before moving to NYC with her husband. She had a career in politics and marketing before becoming a stay at home mom after the birth of their triplets. Over the years she has worked as a small business consultant and fundraiser at her children’s schools.
Judy enjoys working with clients in finding homes for their special things and helping them realize a more organized home. She is looking forward to transforming her own family apartment into a adult family living space now that her children are college bound. Judy lives in Prospect Heights Brooklyn and near Hudson, NY with her husband.
Born and raised in Montreal, Gail embodies the character traits of a true Canadian, nice, helpful, with a sense of humor. As a young girl, Gail would organize her grandmother’s dresser drawers during visits to her apartment. Gail loved their interactions as she worked. Making improvements to someone’s space and listening to the stories of their life proved to be a meaningful experience.
Many years later, Gail chose to study Architecture and got her degree at McGill University. In New York, Gail learned the ropes working for an Architect, designing and project managing high-end residential projects in Manhattan.
Gail delights in collaborating with others to re-imagine a space and then witness the impact of the transformation on someone’s life. She brings her architectural skills of space-planning and visioning, and her enjoyment of brainstorming with clients and a team, to her work with Done and Done. Gail currently volunteers at the Brooklyn Public Library, assisting the Curator of Visual Art Programming on rotating exhibition projects. She lives in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn with her husband, also an architectural designer, and daughter, who is almost off to college. There is always an improvement project to work on at home.
Jeanne was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri but also frequently visited her dad and new family in NorthernCalifornia. All that traveling for parental visits had its many perks, as Jeanne quickly learned how to master the art of packing the essentials into a suitcase and make a nest fit for any bird.
Jeanne earned her BFA from Syracuse University and later moved to NYC where she worked for artist Kris Ruhs making jewelry for Bergdorff Goodman, Corso Como 10 and private clients. She also started her own accessories business making eye-glass chains which sold in Henri Bendel’s, Robert Marc Opticians in NYC and Rodeo Drive in LA.
Jeanne attended the School of Visual Arts post baccalaureate in Art education and went on to teach art to children ranging from preschoolers to 8th graders until she married her husband Fred. Jeanne has extensive experience with all aspects of the home, from purchasing, selling, designing and renovating. She has designed and renovated many projects in her own home while also helping friends declutter, organize, and make decorating decisions. Jeanne also had a 12 year real estate venture in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It also doesn’t hurt that according to astrology, her birth chart has 6 houses in Virgo, making her exceedingly detail oriented!
Originally from the South and educated in the Midwest, Louise moved to New York after college. With a can-do attitude and lots of energy, she worked in sales for clothing manufacturers selling to everyone from major department stores to golf pro shops. Eventually Louise left the city for Connecticut and raised/managed/organized four children, one husband, countless pets, moves and renovations. These days she still volunteers in town (Meals on Wheels, National Charity League and the New Canaan Garden Club) but has found as her children have grown, she has much more free time. Louise is now thrilled to be able to bring her organizational and management skills, positive attitude and high energy to work at Done and Done.
Born and raised in Denmark, Lise came to the United States for a six month visit in the 1980s in order to improve her English. She met the man who would become her husband within two months of arriving and lucky for Done and Done, she stayed. After graduating from UConn with a degree in Design and Resource Management with minors in Psychology and French, she eventually settled in New Canaan where she raised her two children. After years of homemaking and extensive volunteer work (Red Cross, National Charity League, Girl Scouts and NC Garden Club) Lise’s friend, Macky Hennessy, suggested she reach out to Ann and Kate and bring her organizing talents to Done and Done. Lise did her training hours in record time and very quickly became an invaluable member of the team.
Macky Henesey was born and raised in Seal Beach, California. She grew up playing competitive tennis, swimming, running and was a recruited field hockey player at UC Davis. When the beaches beckoned she returned to southern California to graduate with a degree in Psychology from Cal State Long Beach. She then ventured east to begin a career in public relations and advertising in Washington, DC. She met her husband Mike there and they moved shortly thereafter to New Canaan, CT where they’ve lived and raised their three children over the last 25 years. Macky has organized her home, her three kids rooms (repeatedly!), countless dorm rooms and parts of many friend’s homes. Macky has volunteered extensively and her work has spanned from the New Canaan Garden Club to the Waveny Care Center to National Charity League. Professionally she’s taken on the reorganization of a filing system in a law firm’s Westchester County office. Having organized everything from lace to lawsuits there’s not much that intimidates this one!
We didn’t have to search far when we were looking for someone to start up our marketing department. Meg Koett comes to us by way of family; sister to Ann and aunt to Kate, her hire was a no-brainer. We needed someone who knew us well enough to represent our brand and who better than a woman who has literally been there since day one?
Meg is a graduate of Ripon College, but decided early on to work from home while raising her two children. The co-founder of Jam Custom Handbags, Meg learned how to work with clients, how to advertise a brand and how to sell products online. After a successful run of five years, Jam closed their doors and Meg was available to put her knowledge to work for Done & Done.
Favorite space: My favorite space in my home is my exercise room. It’s very small but it has a ton of natural light so I always feel better after spending some time in there working out and getting my thoughts together!
Emilie Stoll is a born and bred New Yorker. With close ties to the Eastern end of Long Island, Emilie has an appreciation for both city and country living. With an early love for organizing in her closet-sized NYC bedroom, Emilie never tires of the satisfaction of decluttering one's life, both physically and metaphorically. Emilie received her Bachelor's degree from Connecticut College where she pursued her love of dance. This took her to lead the marketing department at Dance Magazine prior to joining the Done & Done Team. Though Emilie needs only one winter coat and one set of pans, she values the importance of those sentimental silk scarves from grandparents and those gosh darn hand written letters. Emilie lives in Manhattan with her fiancé and their blind bunny Cooper, and is poised to continue to delve deeper into the power of human connection and building community.
With a background in event management and hospitality, Lauren recently transitioned from planning and executing corporate meetings and special events to professional home organization. Lauren uses her trademark skills of problem solving, creativity, and flexibility to help Done & Done clients. She excels at logistics and operations, and her attention to detail means that projects go smoothly from concept to completion.
Good at wearing multiple hats, Lauren is adept at responding quickly to changing circumstances, always maintaining an upbeat, can-do attitude. As the Client Experience Manager, she specializes in customer service that nurtures positive, productive relationships with both clients and suppliers.
With a degree in Art History, Lauren has also had the opportunity to work onsite at various cultural institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Gracie Mansion Conservancy, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (Pafa).
Lauren holds a bachelor’s degree from Lafayette College and a certificate in meeting planning from Temple University. Lauren, her husband and her two young daughters recently moved and she is excited to renovate, decorate and apply what she is learning at Done & Done to create a more organized home.
Meri was born and raised in New Jersey. After graduating from Lafayette College with a BA in English Literature, Meri began her career working in ad sales in New York City. She then ventured to the West Coast to explore all that San Francisco had to offer. Meri built her career in the Bay Area and spent over 12 years working for a large tech company in advertising sales, business operations, and client services, where she also met her husband Darby. After many years in San Francisco, they purchased their first home in Oakland which is when Meri realized her passion for home interiors and her desire to create functional and beautiful spaces. As their family grew, she tackled many remodels and design projects in their 1920’s East Bay home. When Meri and her husband decided to move back East to be closer to family, Meri de-cluttered, packed and staged their home which expedited the sale and increased the value. She is currently (and slowly) remodeling their NJ home one room at a time.
Meri has always enjoyed helping friends and family problem solve, organize and brainstorm ideas, and brings to Done & Done her expertise of project management, attention to detail and love of organization!
I’m here to tell you a little story of what it is like to be a regular person, non-super hero, keeping an organized home.
My home functions as a resting space for me and my husband, a playground for our step dog, and a sanctuary for our lizard. It also is the place that we cook, eat, entertain, watch football, sew, weave, open the mail, fold laundry, write thank-you notes, write, make coffee, sip cider and read by the fire, carve pumpkins, store a staggering sneaker collection, shower, dress, and conduct the other activities of living a life in New York City. In other words, I have to know how to make my apartment function in 20 different ways over the course of one day, without getting destroyed in the process.
The truth is: I’m not all that good at it.
THE PROBLEM:
In the past few months, things really started getting away from me. I would clean and rearrange every in the seemingly never ending tide of miscellany that scattered my living room, office, and bedroom only to have it reappear the next day.
On our kitchen table sat pens, unopened medical bills, tweezers, lizard vitamins, a silver cup given to me by my grandfather. On my desk lay even more – contact lenses, post-its, old business cards, jewelry, hair spray. Shelves inside my coat closet were stuffed with scarves, hats, and gloves I never wore. The beautiful items I did like, such as the blazer that belonged to my grandmother, were crushed in sad little balls in the back.
The clutter wasn’t scary to look at; it wasn’t glaring to visitors (the reason why I don’t have satisfying before and afters of this project). But it took me ages to get ready in the morning because I couldn’t find my glasses, keys, cell phone, or moisturizer, and if I had to get work done at home, I could barely function because of the low-grade panic I felt at the that if I got distracted by a sink full of dirty dishes, it might take me an hour to get back to my work.
My heart rate rises just thinking about it.
As my wedding approached this past September, I started to experience actual panic attacks when trying to work from home. I felt suffocated and trapped by everything I had to do, but too paralyzed to make the decision to start doing it. In other words: even though I work for a professional organizer and knew what the solution was, I just couldn’t do it on my own. I needed to ask for help.
THE SOLUTION
Every year, Kate and Ann give me a little bonus during the holidays, which in part consists of a day of organizing. That means that they take a day out of their packed schedule to come to my apartment and help me sort through my things. They do this for each other on a regular basis – performing sort of a routine maintenance on their clothes – assessing the most efficient use of their stuff, donating what they can, and recycling the rest. Doing this in small batches on a regular basis keeps their homes functioning.
But I am not they, and their visit to my home was more of the lifesaving variety than the routine tidying up.
WHAT WE DID
It turned out that my apartment was not insanely stuffed or particularly messy. What happened was that somewhere along the way, a ring of unnecessary stuff had formed like an orbiting asteroid belt around what I truly needed. And my daily routine was so disordered because I had to tear through this layer of unnecessary stuff in order to do simple things like get dressed, brush my teeth, do my hair and makeup, and leave the house frantic and miserable.
Furthermore, a sense of dread had settled around my heart, making it impossible for me to tackle this on my own (or, to be honest, with my husband, not because he is unhelpful, but because I was so anxious that a day of power-organizing would have been potentially emotionally explosive).
I believe that the trick to Kate and Ann’s process of working with clients is that there are two of them. Kate was often right next to me, pulling items off of shelves so I could make decisions about them. Whatever I chose to donate or recycle, I would pack into bags, while Ann would take the keep pile and fold them neatly back into the closet in ordered piles.
That there were two people providing a stream of physical help and emotional support throughout the day meant that we worked for four hours instead of eight, covering everything from the living room, bathroom, closet, and office. When I didn’t know whether or not to throw something away, they asked a series of practiced questions to help me make the decision. How often do you use this? Which room do you use it in? Tell me about your routine. They would immediately know how to use it best. If I didn’t use something but wanted to keep it, they figured out way to incorporate it into my daily routine so it didn’t lay forgotten in a corner somewhere.
Of the items that left my apartment that day: jackets that didn’t fit, towels that were torn and stained, broken and rusted cookware. Books I haven’t read in years, mail I never opened, and about 17 catalogues from stores I don’t shop at. Dry pens, broken art supplies, useless cords, outdated DVD’s. Frumpy sweaters, shrunken t-shirts, fraying socks, torn sweats.
THE RESULT
I have to be honest when I say that I’ve always been a bit mystified by the prices of a professional organizer. I have worked as one onsite, so of course I know that the work requires a special combination of physical stamina and emotional intelligence. It is exhausting work, and takes great spatial and interpersonal skill. But would I ever pay someone hundreds, or even thousands of dollars for the service? What does it really do?
I know now what it does. That sense of dread I felt when waking up in the morning? Gone. The panic attacks when having to work from home? Vanished.
Getting dressed in the morning is easy and swift. My laundry situation, once paralyzingly complicated because of my insistence that I hand wash half my clothes: fixed. My night skin routine is perfectly efficient. It takes me about five minutes flat to put on makeup in the morning, and put it all away again.
In the past three weeks, I’ve cooked maybe half the nights, which is something I usually avoid due to fear of having a meltdown at all the dishes. My husband is full, happy, and mystified at why he’s not doing cooking and cleaning as he usually does.
When I get mail, I open it and throw it out. I have a system for paying bills. My lizard’s vitamins are on a shelf with his food and toys. My work files are on a dedicated shelf, separate from my personal ones. My books are neatly stacked on the bookshelf. I know where to find a pen, a thermometer, a pair of tweezers, my checkbook, and stamps. In other words, everything in my apartment serves a purpose and has a home.
Four hours with Done & Done would have cost me about half a month’s rent, or a thrifty vacation. To be fair: the clothes I consigned through them will net me half of that fee back. Not to mention the tax deductions I will receive from the donations. But nevertheless, it is a lot to put forth up front.
But the feeling that my life is infinitely easier every single day is almost indescribable. I no longer run out of my house in the morning to the office just to escape the madness. Somehow, even though I am not waking up any earlier, I feel like I have more time in the morning and I luxuriate in it. My morning routine is calm and productive. I listen to a podcast, eat my breakfast, do my dishes, leave the house. I am happy and ready to face the day.
To keep my heart light and ready to enthusiastically live my life, to be able to save money by working and cooking from home, to avoid the colossal emotional and fiscal expense moving — I would forgo one vacation per year to make that my reality. Without a doubt.
