What our customers say about us...

The Octopus Organizing experience was totally worthwhile. Margie (Maggie) calculated how to use my house space in the most efficient way, along with the time allotted for the project was precise.

Margie is very easy to work with and her attention to detail accurate , as well as flexible. We are extremely satisfied with her decisions and advice.  Very Well Done!

Margie (Maggie) was amazing! She was so helpful and patient while trying to organize my basement that had a lot of memorabilia, furniture and junk.  We made such great progress throughout the process, and I ended up donating a lot of stuff, it felt so good to get my basement back!

She’s like the best! Maggie has been been working on my house, getting closet, bathroom, house organized! She hung artwork, put up valences. This was all done prior to major surgery happening at end of month. So already have Maggie scheduled next month to do spare bedroom, garage, kitchen. She’s fast and good so you need to hire her!! I will be using Maggie as my organizer forever!

Maggie is really talented - and warm and friendly as well. She helped organize my office area, including doing some heavy duty moving and furniture wrangling. She is absolutely terrific.

Working with Maggie is like having a good friend that you know and trust. She treated my mom like she was her own mom. She gave us the confidence to see that the job would get done, minimizing the stress and worries. I know she will do a great job helping Mom get settled and organized.

Maggie helped to move my 93 year old mother. Mom was moving to a smaller apartment and needed to downsize, but it isn't easy for her to let go of things. Maggie was so friendly with Mom, that she was able to relax and let Maggie help her.

This recommendation for Maggie Nakas of Octopus Organizing should have 50 before and after photos to accompany it. Maggie has done so many projects for me in my new home, I can hardly count! There is not a space in the 2600 square feet in which I now live that Maggie has not organized/assembled/repaired/advised on. She is AMAZING. She arrives with her beautiful smile on her petite frame and you might think 'well, I might need someone bigger/stronger/more knowledgeable with tools to do this for me'... YOU'RE WRONG! Maggie can simply do anything. She has assembled all of my furniture, almost always having to replace parts the cheap stuff came with. She has organized my entire kitchen and office. I haven't a clue when it comes to spatial organizing nor a process for which to do so and she had everything. She would come daily with ideas, supplies, thoughts and I would excitedly agree. I could go on and would love to, as I now count her among my dear friends. However, the reader of this has probably heard enough and my three kids who also adore "their Maggie" are barking at me for attention. I can be reached at 650-279-3303 and am happy to talk more specifically about Maggie.

 I built and moved into a Tiny House on Wheels almost 3 years ago! The one area that drove me nuts was my closet. It is not typical as Tiny Houses ARE tiny. A space that was 8 ft long but with a sloping roof and only about 23 inch depth… oh, and in the loft area of the home. I went back and forth on what to do to make it workable for me… tried different things and still the closet was a mess!! Then one day Maggie appeared with an Octopus on her car. I knew she was the one that would solve my multi-year dilemma! I had read the book The Soul of an Octopus and anyone who had a relationship with an octopus was surely manna from heaven! LOL Anyway, she came over and started measuring and drawing and asking lots of questions and before I knew it Voila! I had an organized, workable and beautiful space!! Maggie is wonderful to work  with, a detailed pro with a sense of humor which was much needed working with me! Tiny Houses pose unique space issues, and Maggie rose to the occasion and now, after 3 years of wondering if I would ever get this closet completed... it is!! I highly recommend Maggie for any project. No matter how challenging you think it may be, she makes it seem easy to solve! Thank you Lady Octopus! My Tiny House and I are very happy! :) :)

As an artist, craft person and hoarder, my home was in a real mess. Maggie was a godsend. She was very professional, a hard worker, and not judgmental about the state of my clutter. She helped me immensely in getting rid of my unused/unwanted items, which is very traumatic for me. I was very apprehensive to have someone in my home because of the way it looked, but Maggie was extremely understanding. She didn’t rush me to make decisions as to what I should keep or give away. It was important that my things were not considered to be just trash or junk. Maggie was able to donate my items to local agencies instead of throwing them away. I felt very comfortable with Maggie as we went through my belongings. She went well above and beyond as she helped me to organize my arts and crafts closet, getting rid of the recycling and even cleaning the porch. I highly recommend Maggie to anyone who needs help in cleaning up and organizing their home belongings.

Maggie is amazing. Last year my family of 5 downsized space and moved to Santa Cruz County. There were boxes everywhere. Trying to figure out how to fit three young boys into a smaller space and organize years of boxed paperwork was an overwhelming adjustment. Maggie has been a Godsend. She got in there and started helping me sift through boxes, organize clothes, and file paperwork. She is professional, kind, and comes fully prepared with files, markers, and labels. Her unique visual perspective on organizing has made my life much easier. I can't thank her enough.

This professional with a gentle, firm, expert guidance can transform areas of utter crazy disarray to working, flowing, breathable spaces. The transformations that happen with her special skills set honestly improve how you function in all your environments. I should know, she seen all my craziness from my station wagon, to my work, and to my family home.

As recreation coordinator, non-linear thinker, and massively overwhelmed, I had many places in my life which had extraneous stuff and many items of the same thing. Maggie has worked in the many realms of my disarray.  

It took close to three hours to dig out all the lost, ignored, and piled up items in my station wagon. We found recipes form 2012, a ziplock full of writing pens and a lost pair of doctor ordered sunglasses, very expensive. The station wagon inside was like one of those pasta bowls you start eating and it seems like there's more and more and more stuff was uncovered. I promised myself I would never let another car get that far out of hand again. While this process was going on Maggie help me through my angularity and shame with encouragement, energy and enormousness patience for my whimpering and whining, 'Oh my another scary bag of stuff!'

She also helped me with my cubical at work in which I felt I was under the gun to get in control. Piles of programming ideas for craft projects, staff schedules, many knick-knacks, and personal photos. I had to give up a great deal of visual clutter in order to set up a better tuned-up working environment. I can find documents more easy, I know I can file stuff with the knowledge I can get back to it if need be without piles on my desk. The reason I share this because her ideas and methods for the work area really do help me to be more productive. I finally see my old patterns which were getting in my own way. 

Maggie tackled my wardrobe with a massive pull out of everything and did a sort of toss, donate, and keep. There was a great deal of fussing from my end. Maggie was super patient with my reluctance of the project. One has to be brave if you want to change and Maggie helped me with those mixed up feelings.  Also, additional organization with keeping clothes, like fancy clothes, went on inside of the closest that was harder to get to because we all know Santa Cruz is king of the casual outfit vs. fancy wear. I even learned how to roll my jeans and really fold a T-shirt. Yes, old dogs can learn new tricks with the guidance of Maggie. 

We have had other fine-tuning appointments and I plan to continue to tackle other scary spaces with her in the future.

Thank you so much for coming by and helping me get through all the paperwork I had. You did a great job on helping me organize it and file it. When I look back at it, you had a unique way on how you surveyed the scene and knew exactly what to do and got me on it right away. You set up my filing system so it was easily accessible to put everything in its proper order, whoo hoo!!! And after all that you got me to organize my bill paying to make it easier to pay my bills on time!!! To me, that was above and beyond the normal job! And after all that you even offered to help me organize my house, hanging pictures and things! You really like to exchange! Thanks again for your help! I can't wait for you to come back!

As a homeowner preparing to sell my house, I was a bit overwhelmed with the task. So I asked Maggie to help me with some re-organizing to make my place look more saleable. She was able to quickly assess my current layout and suggest a re-plan of the spaces in my bedroom, living room and kitchen. She rearranged the furniture in my bedroom which opened up the space around the bed and access to the closet. She even removed some draperies so more light entered the room and rehung decorations and pictures so the room looked more aesthetic! It was a much better utilization of space and brightened up the whole room. In the living room she re-arranged the furniture which opened up the room and the space just flowed better. She even did the same in the kitchen! I almost decided to cancel the move and stay in the house after her improvements to all the rooms!

As an engineer and business owner I’m a fairly organized person. But very busy and my job takes me out of town regularly. And having moved from one house to another recently, my filing system was not exactly in great order and my office ended up being a catch-all for everything I didn’t know where else to put for now. So I hired Maggie, having seen her organizing skills firsthand, I knew she could put some order into my life! And what a difference it makes to have organized, neatly labeled files and an office dekluged of clutter. It’s an actual office now, with supplies to hand, every cabinet labeled and everything literally easy to find and at my fingertips! No more searching for tape refills, unburying the printer paper out of the closet, spending way too much time looking for everything! I’m now in organized and don't even mind filing stuff now! She also has some unique decorating ideas as well!

I'm a homemaker and great grandmother and have been living in my home for over 25 years now and I am not the most organized person. Margie not only de-kludged my garage, basement, attic and tool shed, she even organized my linen closet and kitchen cupboards and drawers… with labels!! She even alphabetized my large spice rack! Now I can find any spice so quickly which saved me a lot of time searching for the right spice. She even organized an entire file system for me so the boxes of papers, bank statements, medical records, etc. are now all neatly filed in a file cabinet and she even made a smaller ‘working’ file tucked neatly away in the living room so I can conveniently keep my files up-to-date! She has sold many no-longer-needed items for me and even organized and held a household sale for two days. Now the entire house is cleaned up, organized, all unneeded items and clutter are gone! You can even walk down into the basement now and actually get to the circuity breaker box! Now I know quickly and easily where to put everything and finding anything now is a breeze! I used to spend hours looking for things – now I know right where to look and this has saved me so much time – I actually have time to read all my books now! I highly recommend her! It’s never too late to get organized!

I’m an artist and have a studio in my house that needed some major repairs (walls, flooring) so I had to remove everything in order for the work to be done. Since this was a good opportunity to re-organize the whole room and space (I have a LOT) of artwork, dolls, cabinets, furniture and supplies in this studio) and I wanted to optimize the space. Margie helped me make a space planning drawing, scaled down on paper, with cutouts (also scaled down) of furniture so I could re-arrange my room “on paper” without actually having to move big furniture around to see what fit best and where – this was huge help in rearranging my room and available space and she also had the brilliant idea of utilizing a large closet to house my large paper storage drafting cabinet – this really freed up one wall of my room so I could really spread out my art/doll collection! Margie has a “knack” for space planning as well as organizing and I even took her advice on “just go through one box at a time” instead of looking at the whole huge projects of boxes and getting overwhelmed! Before I knew it I was done! I would recommend her highly for any projects like this!