Her mission is organization

Simon Brown

With a drill, a hammer and some imagination, Leona Laurie turns

clutter into cleanliness.

The 27-year-old Estancia High School graduate launched Working

Space Unlimited last June with the purpose of helping people organize

their previously unmanageable space.

“My goal, when I enter any situation, is to create a sense of

productive peace where any space becomes a room where you can feel at

ease and get things done,� Laurie said.

To that end, Laurie meets with clients to determine their needs

and then combines that with her vision for the space.

“I try to find out how [a client] would like to use their space

and I come up with a plan of attack,� she said. “It’s very easy for

me to visualize the way a space could be used. I eliminate the

clutter mentally, and then I work back from my vision.�

While Working Space Unlimited is Laurie’s newest business venture,

organization has long been a part of her life.

“I’ve always been [organized],�she said. “If you talk to most

organizers, they’ll say that they were born that way. We make lists

when we’re little and we organize everything in our other jobs.�

Laurie’s previous jobs included teaching high school English and

working in public relations, but those positions left her

unsatisfied. Now she’s finally happy.

“I love everything about my job,� she said. “I can say I’ve

accomplished something concrete ... Every other job I had I couldn’t

say that, and I got bored.�

Her clients are happy, too. Laurie says she has worked with 30

clients since Working Space Unlimited opened for business, and at

least one of those clients is extremely satisfied with Laurie’s work.

Laurie spent one year reorganizing Victoria Killingsworth’s

two-car garage. What began as a space piled high with documents,

files and boxes was turned into a tutoring center, Killingsworth

said. The results were “unbelievable, fantastic, terrific,

wonderful,� Killingsworth said.

The most significant result of the reorganization was not the new

tutoring center but an improved quality of life for its owner, she

said.

“I was suffering from depression, and now my depression is gone

because I don’t have any big projects hanging over my head,�

Killingsworth said. “Everything is completely in order and it makes

me really happy.�

Working Space Unlimited is part of a growing trend in spatial

organization. Laurie’s company is trying to distinguish itself by

being one of the only space-management organizations to operate

nationwide. Laurie has contractors working in Illinois, and she hopes

to expand into Arizona and Connecticut. She also hopes to expand her

California business, where she operates an office in Newport Beach,

and get contractors to work in Long Beach, Riverside and Chino.

In the meantime, Laurie hopes to continue destroying disorder and

promoting Working Space Unlimited’s growth.

“My dream is to be on Oprah and have millions of people call me

looking to get organized,� she said.

Until then, Laurie will be trying to organize the world, one room

at a time.