Grand Diane

I am a Professional Organizer, Personal Stylist, and Interior Decorator living and working in Tucson and nationally.

A little bit "What Not to Wear," a little bit "Queer Eye," a little bit "Tidying Up," and a lot of Mary Poppins magic. I specialize in designing and organizing both new and pre-existing spaces to craft environments where moments of real joy and connection can take place. Equal parts action and personal coaching, my work is to identify the physical barriers that my clients are facing which are pres

enting them from living their best lives. I believe that personal and professional growth is difficult if not impossible without addressing the spaces we inhabit: our homes, offices, and businesses. I work collaboratively with clients to co-create spaces which reflect their true essence back to them, while allowing room for new growth. Each project is as unique as the space and the client I am working with, and I bring a deep and versatile skill set which allows us to provide excellent service every time. Those skills include: space design, organization, decorating, life coaching, skills training. Above all I believe that our personal growth and liberation is shared with the people around us. I am an artist, activist, and semi-retired party girl based out of Tucson, AZ Before launching Grand Diane I somehow managed to work in churches, higher education, banking, construction, non-profits, international development, the law, big corporate, and the starving arts. A lifelong nomad, I have visited almost every state and lived or travelled in more than 20 countries on 5 continents. My hobbies include thrift stores, estate sales, politics, writing, modern art, cardio, and being in love with my friends. Future plans include living somewhere with a swimming pool and opening a finishing school for bad girls who want to be worse. My own home is usually on the slightly messy side of perfect, of course.

08/12/2023

It’s nice to be seen by my clients and also fyi my number did change so contact me here for the new one.

05/31/2023

Surprise! I’m planning a trip to Portland late next month and am opening up my books now. I’m prioritizing larger jobs so get in touch quickly if you want a room or closet, etc. DM or email me and as always sliding scale rated.

04/17/2023

So this post is a little bit of an apology for making some design decisions about my living room without y’all when I said I was gonna crowdsource this one. Turns out I couldn’t turn down this set of teak adjustable low shelves for $90 (thank you thank you thank you Facebook Marketplace). I have needed extra storage in the living room for all sorts of miscellaneous things and after surveying the space and considering a few options I decided to use it as a console table behind my sofa. In the second photo you can see the menagerie of miscellaneous objects I needed to put somewhere and this piece is quite frankly perfect for that because its storage options are so varied and its overall appearance so beautiful that I could definitely cram in a lot of stuff right in plain sight.

To figure out how I wanted to use the space exactly I basically started with what I knew that I needed and dialed it in from there. Mail is a very tricky thing because we all get packages that need to be received/opened/sent back plus the standard letters and junk and bills that come in every day. At my house mail had been ending up on the kitchen counter and I wanted a place to contain it so in photo three you can see I decided to use the largest space closest to the door for packages that just got here or need to be returned. I recently acquired this beautiful wooden bowl from a client so I used that and a piece of pottery to set up a letters and bills station in photo four. I placed it in the indented space partially because even in a ceramic jar a bunch of pens isn’t that attractive but mostly because sitting on the couch the bowl is directly at hand level so there is a place to sit and have a beverage and read whatever nonsense your bank has to say in relative peace.

04/12/2023

Grand Diane Cash & Consultation Giveaway!

To celebrate hitting 300 followers (and get serious about adding more…) I am giving away $50 cash to spend on your space and an hour of free consultation to one lucky winner. Entry is simple: follow me, share this post in your stories, tag 3 friends who don’t follow me but should in the comments. That’s it! Consultation can be remote so there are no geographical limitations. Contest closes Sunday at midnight so enter now so you don’t forget. xoxo Eve

04/01/2023

Although I came to this work, or at least the fullness of this work as I now practice it, well into adulthood I have since come to believe that I was in fact born into it, that I am carrying a family legacy which values aesthetics, design, and the home just as strongly as some families care about sports or ethnicity for example. My maternal grandmother Alice was not only a college graduate, remarkable in itself at the time, but went on to earn her M.A. and taught Home Economics at the university level. Without a doubt my interest in keeping house and sharing that knowledge with others originated with her. My paternal grandfather Al was a complicated man like so many of his generation but was truly unparalleled as an architect and artist. My earliest memories of him remain lessons about design and the use of space that I carry on in my work to this day. I am grateful for what they have given me and take my responsibility to carry on their work as seriously as I do taking care of my clients and their needs. I wish they could be here to see what I do, to teach me more, to stand alongside me. But it is enough to know that they would be proud of me and the value I place on what they too love.

03/16/2023

After my old sofa died in transit I replaced it with this white leather number sourced online from a house in Phoenix that looked like a space ship and protected behind two secure gates. Our old coffee table was on its last legs literally so didn’t even make the trip and I picked up this placeholder for $20 which will double duty by the pool this summer. This is just the start of the changes that will be taking place in this living room and I’m going to document them here and solicit input as I go as a sort of crowd source design experiment.

03/08/2023

After more than a decade in business this is the year that I want to grow into a team business with baby organizers and packers and movers being trained in the weird wild world of conjuring stuff but one thing I will never ever ever do is use a team to earn money for me while I do other things. This is wage theft and it is common practice in almost every industry but will not be common practice in my business because I am here to train up the next generation of Mary Poppins realness not sit around and make money while someone younger and more vulnerable than I am does the work. My promise to you is that if you work with me you get me 100%.

03/04/2023

Grand Diane March Remote Special!

Hey all so I just completed a rather unexpected and expensive move and I’m still struggling to play catch up a little bit with the bills but I don’t think I can work in person any more than I am without risking my health. So instead I am gonna be offering 100% sliding scale remote sessions for the month of March. Whether you need a body double for spring cleaning or advice on what not to keep in a purge I’ve got you. Space somewhat limited by my normal schedule but I’m 100% serious about trying to work with anyone who wants to work with me. Pay what you can/will, let’s Kiki. xoxo eve

02/15/2023

Step 3 in How to Pack is to layer. This applies to whether you are talking about a truck or a box or whatever. You start in a truck with the biggest and heaviest stuff nearest to the cab and a box with the heaviest stuff on the bottom. From there you layer upward/outward making sure to keep in mind how you plan to protect the most precious/delicate or expensive elements from getting broken.

In the case of my shoes you can see that I made a sort of basic structure of a layer that would be roughly even and flat and then I filled in the gaps before protective it and the next layer of shoes with some more paper. This box doesn’t have too many expensive or super fragile objects in it but I still want to protract my shoes which just means evenly distributing the weight that will be placed on top of them and making sure they are situated in such a way as the weight is being placed on them in a way that won’t damage the shoe. Note that for very fragile or delicate objects you should never place another box on top of them in case it crushes or damages the object so write “DO NOT TOP” in large letters which in addition to being funny to any gay people who are helping you move will tell everyone who comes after you not to place anything heavy on that box. This is also where buying even a few heavy duty double walled loving boxes can protect your really valuable stuff for $5 or less.

Ok back tomorrow to close up the box/series.

02/07/2023

Ok now that we have our supplies covered we can move on to actually packing. I should note that my packing paper is pre-crumpled because all my boxes and paper came 2nd hand from a recent client move. Yours will come laid out flat crisp & clean & new. Now when you are packing it’s a good idea to move from most fragile/time consuming to least & from least essential to daily life to most. That means that a kitchen will probably get packed later than the books & art & crystals in the living room.

When it comes to packing a box you should think about balance. We are trying to: maximize the amount of stuff in the box, fill the box completely so it doesn’t get crushed, make sure the box isn’t too heavy for whoever has to carry it, and protect the contents inside from getting broken or dirty. The best way to accomplish all of these things is to start with your heaviest items on the bottom. If an object is heavy, fragile, or important enough I will reinforce the bottom with more tape. MOAR TAPE 💁🏼‍♀️. Gather the objects that you want to pack near the box so that you can try and visualize where the objects are going to fit & decide what is the most important thing you are placing in the box. It may not be the same as the heaviest object which is sitting on the bottom, just the object that is most valuable to you or easily broken.

02/06/2023

Grand Diane Presents: How to Pack

Step 1: Supplies

Supplies are a criminally underrated part of the packing process and in this post I hope to show you why I believe that and introduce you to some of my favorite and most used packing supplies. Hopefully by the end of it you’ll never pack the same again. In general all of these supplies can be bought at Lowe’s (the She Shed to Home Depot’s Man Cave) with the exception of packing paper which is much cheaper at the Uhaul store for some reason (and most supplies can be picked up there as well but tend to be a touch more expensive. In this photo you have pretty much all of my favorite moving supplies which are sharpies, packing paper, boxes, tape, plastic wrap, and bubble wrap. All these things except boxes can be acquired for $15-60 and will really make your move so much better and easier. Let’s start with the essentials and move our way onto the nice to haves.

Tape: Tape is the #1 most important thing to have on hand when you are moving and is one of the least expensive parts clocking in between $4-14 depending on how many rolls you need. Tape is magical. It will make a bad box good. It will attach a lid you can’t lose to the jar it fits. Add more tape fixes so many packing problems it’s absurd. Pro tip: get as many little tape dispensers as you have people packing and it will save you time and grief.

More in the comments!

12/24/2022

How to Give Good Closet 4: Iterate. The last and final step in doing a closet (or any space really) is to iterate on your original design until everything is put away and the design is as intuitive and beautiful as you can make it. As I continued to dial in this closet I added another pink crystal to the altar and a photograph of me that my boyfriend keeps to the wall above his stuff. I generally hate overhead lighting and there are no outlets in the closet so I also added a color change bulb and now I can have pink lighting in the club. I decided to hang my bf’s hats on the wall above his bucket system so in order to preserve some space on that level I moved his harnesses down to the bottom row freeing up some line of sight for…absolutely nothing. This is another hiding in plain sight trick I use where I will really pack things in as much as I can in one part so I can burn real estate and leave open space somewhere else. This gives the overall illusion that the space is much bigger than it is, and by giving groupings room to breathe I am also giving my eyes a chance to be drawn to the most beautiful and decorative elements of the space and not just inundating my senses with a seamless wall of stuff. This is best exemplified in the third picture where I have removed a couple of pairs of overflow shoes from next to my purse altar so that even though it is surrounded on all sides by literal piles of stuff it still makes an independent and striking visual.

In the same way that I divided the room into a top and bottom I also divided the room into a “hidden” and “line of sight” and a his section and hers section. Like organizing smaller and more specific piles, making these distinctions in spaces will guide your placement and allow the closet to tell you what the best solution might be. On the door I created what people in the industry very unsexily call a “dump zone” and placed my every day purse, a couple seasonal pieces (in this case hoodies), a robe my boyfriend likes a lot, etc. as an easy to load/pickup space. Final thoughts in the comments…

Address

Portland, OR
97086-97299

Website

http://www.granddiane.com/

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