There are a lot of lessons to learn from Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin, the hosts of Netflix’s Get Organized with The Home Edit. For instance, never underestimate the power of a well-ordered fridge. Labeling your jars, drawers, and shelves will help you keep everything in its right place. And everyone – even celebrities like Retta, Reese Witherspoon, and Rachel Zoe – has problem areas when it comes to organisation.
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Since founding The Home Edit in 2015, Shearer and Teplin have grown their company into a brand with over a million Instagram followers, two books, and famous clientele including Kim Kardashian West, Mandy Moore, Dan Levy, and Gwyneth Paltrow. On Get Organized, the duo gives viewers a peek into their process as they revamp the pantries and closets of both celebrities and everyday people and families. Although their famous patrons sometimes have more glamorous projects (just wait until you see Witherspoon’s costume archive), Shearer says they aren’t necessarily more daunting.
“Literally every single person, I don’t care how nice your home is or how famous you are – you open cabinets and drawers and pantries and it’s like, ‘Needs to be organised,’” Shearer told Refinery29 over Zoom. They do have one famous client, though, whose house is pretty close to flawless: Khloe Kardashian. “For us, when we go to Khloe’s, it’s like, ‘Oh my god, she kind of did this without us anyway.’ It’s already 98% perfect.”
On her episode of Get Organized, Kardashian gets a garage makeover, complete with a new painting station and a miniature parking lot for her daughter, True. Shearer and Teplin have worked with Kardashian in the past to set up spaces including her pantry. “She gets us on such a different level than most people get us,” Teplin added. “I’m just always afraid that we’re going to let her down in any way.”
But one challenge the pair faces with celebrity makeovers – or, at least, the on-screen ones – are tight time constraints. In those situations, it isn’t just their natural organisational talent that helps Shearer and Teplin: it’s their connection, and how attuned to each other they are. “It started that way from the very beginning,” Shearer said. She recalls coming home from her first project with Teplin, and her husband asking whether they found themselves discussing each decision and struggling to divide up work. She realised they hadn’t. “One of our biggest strengths, I think, as business partners, as friends, as organisers, is that we don’t spend time bickering.”
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That’s not to say they automatically agree on everything. But, Teplin says, they both “almost always” have different parts of any given task that they feel strongly about. “We never really discussed [it] and it just turned out that way,” she explained.
They also have a plan in place for if and when one of them gets completely overwhelmed by a project – and, with such tight timeframes, this happens more than once on Get Organized. If either Teplin or Shearer starts to feel stressed, the other immediately jumps in and takes full control. On the show, they call these their “pain points,” and they can both tell as soon as one is about to happen. When Shearer’s panicked, she says, she goes inward. Teplin, meanwhile, starts muttering to herself. “We can tell,” Shearer said, laughing. “We know.”
Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have spent more time than usual in our living spaces, and this year, home organisation is more important than it ever has been. With that in mind, Teplin and Shearer want Get Organized viewers to know that their tips will help long-term, not just in the moment. Teplin said that the most heartwarming part of her job is returning to old clients’ homes and apartments years later and seeing how they kept up the work.
“If we organise a pantry for a family…we could go back four years later and it’s excellent,” Shearer added. “Generally, when we set up systems, they last.”