Hayley Harrison and Gemma Abraham have been close friends since meeting two decades ago. Now the pair work together to transform people’s homes into organised, functional spaces
Having met 20 years ago, Hayley Harrison and Gemma Abraham quickly became the closest of friends. From navigating their corporate careers to getting married in the same year to having children at similar times, the pair have been through life’s biggest moments together, and five years ago their relationship took on a whole new meaning when they became business partners.
With friends and family knowing Hayley and Gemma as having a knack for organisation, the pair were often called on by loved ones for their help. At the end of 2019 the duo decided to do something with their skillset and founded Organise-d (organise-d.com) to help others turn their homes into functional spaces.
READ MORE: Experts share the spring cleaning hacks that will leave you feeling ‘amazing’
“Shortly before we went into lockdown, we made the decision that after seeing Marie Kondo in the US that maybe we could look to do something similar here. We set up a business, found our name, registered it, and then COVID happened,” Gemma tells the Mirror.
Hayley adds: “We really panicked and thought it was an awful time to launch a home organisation business because we couldn’t go into homes. We used the first lockdown to get the back end of our business going. Then we registered as a trade business which meant that in the second lockdown we were able to go in and work. People had been stuck in their homes and a lot of them were really stressed about organisation and how much stuff they had.”
While many of us would do anything to put off tidying, Hayley and Gemma embrace it. Rather than seeing it as something to dread, the pair embrace the challenges and focus on the satisfaction of turning clutter into something a lot cleaner.
“We are now conditioned and very naturally we get a sense of excitement rather than being overwhelmed. The most important thing is it’s not our stuff. Trying to do it yourself with your own belongings that you have an emotional attachment to is where the struggle is,” says Gemma.
“Almost the worse it is, the more excited we get because we know the difference we’ve made. We’ll walk into a wardrobe and we’ll be like ‘wow’, whilst there’s loads of stuff we can see the potential because there is loads of storage and there’s loads of draws and we just need to maximise the space to make it work,” explains Hayley.
And while some people might just understand organisation as putting things into boxes or containers, it’s a whole lot more than that. With decluttering known to benefit people’s wellbeing, the pair have found a deep sense of contentment from their career.
“We always wanted to do something where we felt that we were really adding to somebody’s life and making a real difference, and it really does. Whether you’re living in a one-bedroom flat or whether you’ve got an eight-bedroom house, it’s really stressful to go home to a cluttered, disorganised environment,” says Hayley.
“What we’ve really found is that from a mental health side of things we’ve really helped people work through some things. We help guide them through that process and make sure that everything in their house is items that they use and love and cherish and it’s not just stuff they’ve accumulated over years and years.”
Five years on from setting up their business, Hayley and Gemma have amassed more than 36,000 followers on Instagram. Over the years they’ve worked with everyone from charities to celebrities including Kate Ferdinand and Billie Shepherd too.
“We have five kids between us, so we’re trying to manage a busy and successful business alongside juggling our own homes,” says Gemma.
Hayley adds: “We feel really lucky. We do a lot of networking, we’ve made lots of contacts during this process and we’ve really just pushed our services out there to people that have really needed it. We just feel really fortunate that we’ve created opportunities for ourselves that have really gained us exposure, but also gained us so much job satisfaction.”
READ MORE: Jumbo billionaire-filled chocolate dessert egg arrives for Easter and ‘tastes delicious’