Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Get Organized With The Home Edit’ On Netflix, A Reality Series Extension Of The Popular Home Edit Brand

Joanna Teplin and Clea Shearer own The Home Edit, a professional organizing business that now has been franchised out around the country. Their method of color-coded organization, with fun labels and lots of storage. They have celebrity admirers like Reese Witherspoon (an EP of the series; Molly Sims is also an executive producer), Mindy Kaling and Gwyneth Paltrow, but they get just as much of a kick out of reorganizing everyday people’s closets and other rooms as they do for celebrities. In their new reality series, Get Organized With The Home Edit, they apply their skills to rooms in both celebrity homes and the homes of everyday folks.

GET ORGANIZED WITH THE HOME EDIT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Joanna Teplin and Clea Shearer introduce themselves, and Clea immediately skips part of the script they were going through. Of course, Joanna busts her chops about it.

The Gist: In each episode of Get Organized With The Home Edit,  Joanna, Clea and their staff do a reorg for a celebrity client and an everyday client, and in both they gush over their belongings as well as have a grand old time putting things in Lucite containers with labels with a font made from Joanna’s handwriting. First is Witherspoon, who has an extra walk-in closet at her Nashville home (don’t we all?) and thought she could use it to organize and display her costumes from her various films, as well as her award-show dresses from over the years. Clea and Joanna scream with happiness at the chance to reorganize anything for Reese, much less the looks she wore in the Legally Blonde films and Big Little Lies. They even find a prop version of Bruiser, the dog Elle Woods carried around in her purse during the Legally Blonde films.

The second project is their first “ambush” reorg, as a busy pediatrician named Whitney is nominated by her doctor buddies to get a closet makeover. When Joanna and Clea surprise Whitney, they see a closet that looks like another room in the house. They don’t color-code everything, but put together all of her blue clothes — she’s a Kentucky native — into one area, they move a dresser, give her a spot for her accessories and a spot where she can dump things out when she switches handbags, and even a place to sit by the window and enjoy some tea.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Tidying Up With Marie Kondo, but a heck of a lot more fun.

Our Take: Get Organized With The Home Edit is supposed to feel like one of those HGTV makeover shows with a bit of Bravo personality mixed in. Clea and Joanna aren’t just experts at organizing, they love getting into someone’s closet or garage, doing some problem solving, figuring out the best use of the space they’re in and then making everything look great. That enthusiasm can be seen in the show.

We’re not super-interested in the celebrity closet makeovers, mainly because it’s hard for us to relate to Reese Witherspoon’s need to display her costumes and red-carpet attire in her random extra walk-in closet, Khloé Kardashian’s massive garage, or a top-notch playroom for Neil Patrick Harris’ kids. We want to see the everyday people, who don’t have time or desire to organize, who have that room or closet or garage space in their house that they’d be ashamed for visitors to see. That’s where Joanna and Clea’s skills shine the most, and their efforts are more appreciated by the people they help.

One of the things that the show is not, at least not in the episode we saw, is particularly instructive. Sure, they give tips, but this is more about how they converted a space from a mess to something colorful and neat (including arranging books by color… eep) than giving organizational tips. For that you likely need to read their website, read the book they penned, or follow them on Instagram. Or heck, if you have the cash, hire one of their local franchisees to do the organization for you!

Sex and Skin: Aside from “closet porn”? Nothing.

Parting Shot: Joanna reminds Clea to never surprise her, even if it’s just her coming over for a chat. They do these personal asides all the time, and their friendship is palpable on screen.

Sleeper Star: We like that their employees can express their own ideas and Clea and Joanna are open to them. The one who did the “doughnut roll” to tie up scarves into neat little buns (“cinnamon buns,” say the bosses) was pretty clever.

Most Pilot-y Line: At the end of Reese’s closet makeover, Reese, Clea and Joanna perfunctorily mention that they might be back to organize clothes from some of her many, many other films. Where was the Walk The Line stuff? Where was Tracy Flick’s school uniform from Election? The brown wigs she wore on The Morning Show? That closet wasn’t big enough to fit Reese’s whole career.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If you’re into seeing messy spaces become neat, with people genuinely enthused to help, then Get Organized With The Home Edit will feel like getting into a warm bath, one where your products are sorted by color.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Get Organized With The Home Edit On Netflix