Do you need an Organizer or a Designer?

Organizing vs Designing

At Madeline Lewis Designs, we’re often asked whether someone needs a professional organizer or an interior decorator. The truth is, both play very different roles in how your home feels and functions—and depending on where you are in your journey, you may need one before the other.

A professional organizer focuses on what’s inside your cabinets, closets, drawers, bins, and baskets—the “behind the scenes” systems that support your daily life. They help you sort through what you own, decide what to keep, and create practical, sustainable ways to store and access your belongings. If you feel like you’re constantly fighting piles of paper, overstuffed closets, or a kitchen that never seems to stay tidy, an organizer’s primary goal is to reduce the clutter and create order so your home feels easier to live in, day after day.

An interior decorator, on the other hand, focuses on how your home looks and feels once those systems are in place. At Madeline Lewis Designs, our work centers around creating beautiful, cohesive rooms that reflect your personal style. We select furnishings, art, lighting, color palettes, textiles, and finishing touches that bring a space to life. While we always keep function in mind, our role is to shape the overall mood and aesthetics of a room—how it welcomes you, calms you, energizes you, and supports the way you want to live.

Sometimes, a client comes to us saying they don’t like their space and they’re ready for a “complete redo.” Once we walk the space together, it becomes clear that the main issue isn’t the sofa or the paint color; it’s the sheer amount of stuff. If you don’t like your home right now, it may not be because your décor is wrong—it may be because the space is simply too cluttered to let any design shine. In those cases, the best first step is often to work with a professional organizer to simplify and reset.

Once the clutter is under control, decorating becomes more impactful, more enjoyable, and often more cost-effective.

Madeline Lewis Designs regularly partners with several trusted professional organizers in the area. When we see that a client will benefit from decluttering and systems before we finalize design choices, we’re happy to make those connections and collaborate as a team. The organizer helps create order and breathing room; we then step in to layer in color, texture, furniture, and styling so the space feels finished, intentional, and uniquely yours.

If you’re not sure whether you need an organizer, a decorator, or a combination of both, we can help you sort that out during our initial conversation. Our goal is always the same: to help you love your home again—both in how it functions and in how it feels every time you walk through the door.

Stephanie