Cleaning...I want a pretty house.

[Halcyon]

I need to spend more time in the evenings dusting and cleaning, but I work from 8-12 then homeschool DS from 12 to 4-ish. Then its dinner and the basics, and I am too brain dead to do much else.

 

Dh is being much more helpful lately, he gets up and does some kind of exercise like Tai Chi or swimming out back with DS and a lot of mornings they tackle spelling, reading, or math.

We rarely fight, and we never yell, but I had a full blown crying/yelling meltdown a couple of weeks ago about the lack of help with the everyday cleaning and life routines.

 

The lack of help isn't intentional, he just doesn't see it, and doesn't really care. But I can'tdo work, school, and the house without dropping too many balls. I've also made sure to do my planning and research when he is around so he sees how much time goes into it other than just mon-fri afternoon, plus lots of discussing, field trips and documentaries.

 

I'm also considering cutting back one morning a week at work, it would give me one full day at home to tackle bigger projects either with DS school, or the house.

 

I did this this morning. Oh, and we DO fighgt :tongue_smilie:. But anyway, he is helping me by cleaning the bathrooms today with older while i clean e kitchen, LR and DR. It is looking good. Next, we are tackling the pool filter, which has issues. I agree with the posters who say that having less stuff helps. We gave a lot away to Goodwill. And the boys rooms look so much cleaner, almost empty. I love it! The garage is still not done. And we too have the "pile of cords" issue. Dh refuses to throw them away :glare:.

 

Good luck, everyone.

[Element]

Here is my next question :)

 

How do you communicate what needs to be done to others in your family. I am tempted to hang a checklist in each room and set a timer for 15 minutes and then we pick whatever we want off a list. 3 people cleaning hard and fast for 15 minutes can get a LOT done.

 

But the lists might also just end up as part of the scenery, and add to visual clutter.

 

My ds has one hour to clean his room on Saturday. If he can't either a.) keep it clean enough during the week that he can clean it within an hour on Saturday or b.) trash it during the week and work his butt off in that one hour to get everything picked up, I say, "Okay, it's my fault that your room is unmanageable. You have too many things." Then I will send him out of his room and go in with a Goodwill bag and a trash bag. 99% of the time, his room looks great after an hour. The other 1%, he has put away the most valued toys first (Legos and models) and whatever else is out is usually junk that needs to go anyway.

 

He has hundreds of books in his room, so I really do need to go in and declutter every once in a while. We also have the rule that "if it doesn't fit comfortably, we need to make room for it." This prevents the drawers and bookshelves from overflowing. Probably once every 2 years I will pull 3 or more bags of junk out of my bedroom closet for Goodwill, so I am not exempt from my own rule!

 

Dd has a slightly bigger room and rarely plays in it, so her room doesn't get that bad. I go through both children's things at least twice a year. I also scan in all of the kids' artwork I want to keep. At the end of the year, I put it in a photo book and make photo calendars for the grandparents showcasing the best artwork of the year. It is usually at least a 2-day project, but it's worth it.

 

We also take every 6th or 7th week off of school and I use that time to take on a major cleaning project or two. It's neverending! You have to kind of "pick your battles" as well. No one person needs to do it all! :grouphug:

[jeninok]

We discuss things, sometimes tensely, but my exh is a sociopath/malignant narcissist and I can't handle much full on aggressive confrontation like yelling. It is too triggering.

 

I am going to Garden Ridge with 200 dollars to possibly spend on some side table with doors/cabinets, or a cube bookshelf for the school stuff. I am so sick of the entire shelf falling over every time I pull a book out! I would also like to be able to put a row of baskets to hide supplies and stuff but still have them easily accessible

[HomeschoolMamaOfTwo]

 

I had set a month aside to work on the house before school started, and divided my house into 14 "zones" that made sense to me, then put them in order of easiest to most disgusting. I spent as much time and energy as I could on one zone in one day, then moved on to the next area the next day. I reserved two days for the really bad rooms.

I managed to get rid of a LOT of stuff in that time, but I still have a long way to go. But the progress was noticeable, so it keeps me going.

 

Now I'm keeping the same 14-spot list and I have to spend some time in a new room/area each day. With the easiest rooms already dejunked, that time can now be spent detailing the ceiling fan or wiping down a wall or cleaning out a sliding door track... the stuff I had to ignore when trying to cope with junk.

The really bad rooms get more decluttering done until they finally reach the same state.

 

For me, that will eventually lead to everything getting a good cleaning every two weeks, which makes more sense for us than Flylady's every few months method.

 

Thank you for the idea! I think something like this might work for me. I'm going to give it a try!

[jeninok]

I have made major progress on the shelf and "office" area in our living room. I tossed 3 kitchen size trash bags full of old papers and junk from the room :)

 

I sorted and reshelved our books, putting the seldom used ones on the top two shelves and then sorted by color. I also got all the misc knick knacks and junk out so that there is nothing but books. I also found some dark purpley brown bins at the dollar store that will hold a binder, notebook and small library books or readers, and stuff like rulers or colored pencils and set one up for each main subject. This way we aren't causing the entire shelf of books to fall over every time we need something for class. These 4 bins share a shelf with the kingfisher and Usborne encyclopedias that stand up on their own.

 

I also made a bin for my binder, planner, and lesson plans/reference stuff in progress as well as two magazine racks with DS morning folder and notebook.

 

The whole living room looks 100 times better and the system all has big pretty labels to make it easy to put stuff away or DS to find.

 

 

Next up is the dining room/art studio!

[TrixieB]

I threw away a small crate of random electronic type cords tonight, it looked like power cables, maybe a co-ax, and some with weird ends. NONE of them go to anything we use, and we haven't needed any of them in at least 2 years.

 

Do other people have random cords floating around? I feel like we accumulate them for some reason.

Consider yourself fortunate that you had only one box of random electronics cords, and that it was small. I wish that were the case at my house.

[hillfarm]

A quick foray into the second part of the OP, the pretty house.

 

I read a book once, long ago, that talked about making your home a treat for all your senses, regardless of its overall appearance.

 

Sight: this is the most obvious one and greatly benefits from all our cleaning and decluttering efforts. Less visual clutter creates less mental clutter. If you have to, make a container wall and block the view of it with a nice piece of fabric or a folding screen. Then work on one container at a time to declutter.

 

Hearing: use "mood" music frequently to provide a background for your home life. Consider classics playing quietly in the background during school. Put on something really peppy and infectious during breaks and fun time. Get something with a driving beat or a march to fuel chores and cleaning sessions.

 

Smell: first, identify and eliminate anything causing bad odors in your home. Find a trusted friend and ask them to come in and do a smell test for you. It is sadly easy to habituate to a lingering odor and no longer be able to detect it, even though it is strong enough to knock a visitor over when they come to call. Once the bad smells are gone, experiment with good smells. There are many great options these days. Learn more about aromatherapy. Use things like citrus or mint to wake things up, vanilla to soothe, lavender to calm, etc.

 

Touch: find a few items with textures that please you and place them creatively around the house. Perhaps a throw pillow in a cool, nubbly fabric in one spot, a satin covered trinket box on a dresser, or a smooth, polished stone on a desk or shelf. You don't have to keep touching the item (although you may choose to do so). Once you know how it feels, your brain will access that sensation every time your eye falls on the object.

 

Taste: have a few tasty treats on hand for judicious use daily. Maybe a small box of favorite cookies or a bag of fabulous jelly beans or hard candies to parcel out slowly over weeks. Perhaps a few fruits a couple of times a week that are bursting with flavor and at the peak of ripeness.

 

When I manage to get my act together enough that I am able to do this, my house starts to feel really special to me. A real refuge and oasis. It will always look like a dumpy, old farm house. But I can make it feel special if I really make the effort. HTH:)

[swellmomma]

I forgot to ask my questions!

My biggest one, since its such a pain....

In a busy house, with pets etc, how often do walls and doors normally need washed? Ours seem to get gross really fast, but I never remember my mom scrubbing walls, and I never look at anyone else's close enough.

 

My mom used to do walls and doors weekly as well as spot washing the carpet weekly and we never had pets. Sadly I just don't have enough time to do walls etc weekly and my dog and cat are horrible for walking along then right after being in the dirt/mud outside so they are in bad shape. If I was to keep on top of finger prints from my 4, the daycare kids when I have them and the pets I would be washing entrance and kitchen walls daily which I can not do.

[jeninok]

A quick foray into the second part of the OP, the pretty house.

 

I read a book once, long ago, that talked about making your home a treat for all your senses, regardless of its overall appearance.

 

Sight: this is the most obvious one and greatly benefits from all our cleaning and decluttering efforts. Less visual clutter creates less mental clutter. If you have to, make a container wall and block the view of it with a nice piece of fabric or a folding screen. Then work on one container at a time to declutter.

 

Hearing: use "mood" music frequently to provide a background for your home life. Consider classics playing quietly in the background during school. Put on something really peppy and infectious during breaks and fun time. Get something with a driving beat or a march to fuel chores and cleaning sessions.

 

Smell: first, identify and eliminate anything causing bad odors in your home. Find a trusted friend and ask them to come in and do a smell test for you. It is sadly easy to habituate to a lingering odor and no longer be able to detect it, even though it is strong enough to knock a visitor over when they come to call. Once the bad smells are gone, experiment with good smells. There are many great options these days. Learn more about aromatherapy. Use things like citrus or mint to wake things up, vanilla to soothe, lavender to calm, etc.

 

Touch: find a few items with textures that please you and place them creatively around the house. Perhaps a throw pillow in a cool, nubbly fabric in one spot, a satin covered trinket box on a dresser, or a smooth, polished stone on a desk or shelf. You don't have to keep touching the item (although you may choose to do so). Once you know how it feels, your brain will access that sensation every time your eye falls on the object.

 

Taste: have a few tasty treats on hand for judicious use daily. Maybe a small box of favorite cookies or a bag of fabulous jelly beans or hard candies to parcel out slowly over weeks. Perhaps a few fruits a couple of times a week that are bursting with flavor and at the peak of ripeness.

 

When I manage to get my act together enough that I am able to do this, my house starts to feel really special to me. A real refuge and oasis. It will always look like a dumpy, old farm house. But I can make it feel special if I really make the effort. HTH:)

 

This is wonderful!

I bought myself a new scentsy type warmer from walmart, since the cat knocked the other one off my counter and cracked it. It is amazing what a difference having a lovely smell makes in the way I feel about our house.

 

I also have been boxing up knick knacks and other items, that i might have loved at one time, but now are only taking up space, I am doing the same with ones my DH seems to have no emotional feelings towards.

 

These will sit in a box for over a month until my grandmother's garage sale. This way, right before the sale he can double check that he didn't actually miss any of them.

 

 

I also cleaned out my son's toy box that was full of junky stuff, 95% of it was obvious trash, and the rest I put in a bag with the hope he will go through it and decide to donate some of them to other children, or sell them at the garage sale to make some spending money for his State Fair pass.

I then filled the box with the small cooler bag, duffel bags and backpacks we use on a very regular basis, they had been hanging in the hallway and it always drove me nuts, but I didn't know where else to put them. This way they are all contained in a nice wooden box, but still where we can grab them, pack them and go.

[stripe]

What are these cords.......

what machinery did they once belong to? The cords are a big mystery to me, why would we get rid of electronics or appliances but not their cord?

 

I just had my husband donate to a thrift store a huge bag of mystery cords! For some reason the thrift stores have a giant stock of these.

[AnnaM]

he is the one who dragged out the box of random cords and sorted through/tossed most of them just a couple days ago.

 

Can I just say that it brings me great comfort to know my husband is not hte only one who collects random cords.

[Denisemomof4]

What are these cords.......

what machinery did they once belong to? The cords are a big mystery to me, why would we get rid of electronics or appliances but not their cord?

 

and lets not forget all those items which have no cord so are of no use.:glare:

[LaxMom]

and lets not forget all those items which have no cord so are of no use.:glare:

 

Bet you could find one on eBay or at the thrift store right about now. ;)

[jeninok]

and lets not forget all those items which have no cord so are of no use.:glare:

 

We thankfully don't have any of those, but we did have 3 VCRs, and 2 DVD players that didn't work, as well as a bunch of Playstation 2 games, and no Playstation anymore.

 

I have gotten them all out, I don't know why we were keeping them :001_huh:

[BrookValley.]

I need to spend more time in the evenings dusting and cleaning, but I work from 8-12 then homeschool DS from 12 to 4-ish. Then its dinner and the basics, and I am too brain dead to do much else.

 

Dh is being much more helpful lately, he gets up and does some kind of exercise like Tai Chi or swimming out back with DS and a lot of mornings they tackle spelling, reading, or math.

We rarely fight, and we never yell, but I had a full blown crying/yelling meltdown a couple of weeks ago about the lack of help with the everyday cleaning and life routines.

 

The lack of help isn't intentional, he just doesn't see it, and doesn't really care. But I can'tdo work, school, and the house without dropping too many balls. I've also made sure to do my planning and research when he is around so he sees how much time goes into it other than just mon-fri afternoon, plus lots of discussing, field trips and documentaries.

 

I'm also considering cutting back one morning a week at work, it would give me one full day at home to tackle bigger projects either with DS school, or the house.

 

I can sympathize! :grouphug: My husband is pretty supportive and helpful, but he just doen't get that our clutter problem literally makes me ill. He tries, but he doesn't understand--he doesn't see it, and it doesn't bother him. Oh, to live in such blissful ignorance!

 

Last week, we were able to work together to declutter one major area of our house. I sent my husband to the thrift store (which takes donations and operates the store in support of a local charity) with a truck full of stuff. It was good stuff, not junk--a lot of nice picture frames, a nice printer, a full set of 6 window blinds in perfect shape, a cute decorative bench, etc. I was so happy to just purge all this stuff we don't need! However, my husband returned with half of it. The thrift store wouldn't take the frames, the printer, the blinds, or the artwork we tried to donate!! I nearly cried. :crying: