By Elizabeth Cloutman

Professional organizers offer suggestions, classes and services to help you organize

You have six partial sets of everyday china, two sets of stainless steel silverware, all kinds of souvenir mugs and glasses from London to Armadillo Village in Texas, and so many spices you can never find the red pepper flakes for your pizza. Your kitchen cabinets are overflowing - but you don’t know where to begin. Several area professional organizers offered their advice on this surprisingly common kitchen problem.

Whether you reorganize your kitchen on your own or call a professional, the first step is not to acquire more storage space, but to start eliminating what you never use.

“Every single client complains about (lacking storage space),” said Los Altos resident Mary Rossow, owner of Rossow Resources. “It’s never going to help. It’s just going to fill up with Tupperware. Look at what your values, interests and needs are. You have to clarify that before you even begin.”

Cynthia Ishimoto, owner of Visual Peace in San Jose, warns that no matter how large your home is, without the process of eliminating, “You have a Winchester Mystery House in the works.”

Sound overwhelming?

Ishimoto advised not tackling the elimination process all at once, but to begin by setting aside a one-hour period for one drawer or cabinet. “Start with the ‘junk drawer. It’s mostly trash, anyway,” she said. It may take a week or more, but you’ll eventually get through the kitchen.

What do you do with everything you think you should get rid of? Give it away to charity or even to someone you know, or have a garage sale, the organizers advised. Don’t let guilt over an expensive purchase make you hesitant to get rid of it, said Sihem Tounsi, owner of Voila! Organized of Mountain View.

“What’s the point if you don’t use it?” Kari Peterson, owner of Peterson Organizing in Los Altos, noted the cost of keeping something is “the time to maintain it and a place to store it, which is expensive in this area.”

The next step is to decide how to rearrange the stuff you’re going to keep. “Ask, ‘What have I learned about myself (through the process of elimination)?’” Ishimoto said.

Both Rossow and residential organizer Debra Robinson advised thinking of the various parts of your kitchen as pieces of real estate in which you give prominent places to the things you use the most and plan logical locations.

“Get like things together,” Robinson said. “Dishes should be stored next to the dishwasher. I like to put spices on their sides in a drawer, so I can find them easily.” Ishimoto and Peterson suggested locating children’s dishes and breakfast foods in a low cabinet. “You’ll teach them independence,” Ishimoto said.

Once everything is reorganized, don’t let yourself fall into the same habits that got you into that disastrous kitchen state in the first place, warned Ishimoto. Simplify and examine your lifestyle. “Say ‘I don’t need to be a grocery store with three different kinds of cheese and a variety of rices.’If you simplify, it’s easier to maintain. You can learn to live with what you have.”

Taking charge of even one small part of your environment can often feel empowering, Tounsi said.

Still feel as if your life is sufficiently complicated to take on even the supposedly simple task of reorganizing your kitchen? Don’t hesitate to ask for help, the organizers emphasized. Ask a friend or pay your child or a neighborhood teen to assist you in the process - or seek help from the pros. There are books and stores such as Organized Living in San Mateo and Santa Clara.

Rossow, professional organizers Joan Teo of Los Altos and Jay Davidson of Palo Alto are scheduled to teach a three-week class, “Organize Your Home/Life,” beginning Jan. 22, through the Palo Alto adult education program.

Most of all, don’t feel ashamed about the cluttered, disorganized state of your kitchen - or other parts of your home or office. “Some of the brightest, most creative people are the most disorganized,” Rossow said. Even some professional organizers - Rossow estimates about 5 percent - are by their nature, disorganized and have acquired their skills by practice. She even admits to being one of them.

For information, refer to the “Organizing Services and Systems - Household and Business” in the Yellow Pages or logon to the National Association of Professional Organizers - San Francisco Bay Area chapter Web site at www.napo-sfba.org. and press the “Find an Organizer” button.

“Organizing Your Home/Life” is scheduled 7-9:30 p.m., Jan. 22, 29, and Feb. 5, at Palo Alto High School, 50 Embarcadero Road. For information, call 329-3752.