Cluttered? Neat? In between?

[Sun]

The clutter thread got me wondering. How do you typically keep your home? Does it look like the pictures in the article? Or does it look more like the pictures in this thread (warning: beautiful kitchen alert!)? I'm obviously talking about how it generally looks, not when you're cooking dinner and trying to get the kids to do their schoolwork while trying to keep yourself upright because the baby was up half the night.

 

Do you have an evening routine to spiff up the house before relaxing or going to bed? Do you do your dinner dishes after dinner or the next day? Do you put dirty dishes on the sink or counter during the day, or do they get washed or go straight to the dishwasher? Do you have a black hole of despair (or several) in your house?

 

What's your big housekeeping downfall?

 

For me: For the past several years, I've tried hard to keep my house pretty spiffed up, though I obviously fall short sometimes! I used to be much more of a relaxed housekeeper. Laundry is still my nemesis! I try to clean the house up after dinner and before relaxing for the night. I always do the dinner dishes after dinner, and dishes either get washed or go straight in the dishwasher--I can't stand them on the counter or in the sink. I do have a black hole, though. My garage is a mess, and I can't park in it. Cleaning it out never seems to rise very high on my priority list.

 

So how is it at your home?

[Annie Laurie]

I'm somewhere in between, but more towards the neat end. My house is not beautiful or ever perfectly neat. We live here. However, it's nothing like the photos of the cluttered house. We pick up the kitchen and living room every night, and the kids pick up their rooms and the play/school room every afternoon before they have screen time.

 

I may have some Frigits (Rube Goldberg like magnets) on my fridge that the kids play with, and a few of their latest drawings, but it's not covered from top to bottom with stuff. I may have a messy closet in our master bedroom, because it's huge and ends up being the catchall for stuff, but it's contained to that area. I may have toys all over my living room floor by the end of the day, but we all pick it up and put it away before dinner.

[Stayseeliz]

I'm in between for sure. We live in a small house with lots of people so there is stuff but everything has it's place. But there is stuff for sure. And I'll be honest and say that I'm not going to put in the effort to make sure it's spic and span all the time when someone is just going to come along and destroy the perfection in about two seconds. The stuffed animals etc don't both me but those messy bedrooms bothered me. Stuff all under the beds, on the floor, etc. Things need to have a home.

[staceyobu]

The ends of our kitchen counter are a constant catch all. Bibles from church, bills that need to be paid, handwriting page we are going to finish the next day, etc. I constantly come up with systems to keep stuff off the counter, but then an item comes in that doesn't fit the current system and so it gets stacked there. We don't have much kitchen space and no pantry... so our drawers and shelves all seem to be in use with needed kitchen items. I just need a place for the random stuff...

[sbgrace]

We're somewhere between those two. I actually have a strong dislike for clutter but I'm resigned to it now--at least until this kid phase is done. My clutter is necessary/life clutter though--books, toys, homeschool material, etc.

Edited October 11, 2012 by sbgrace

[Jean in Newcastle]

Cluttered. I'm having visitors this weekend though so it will magically (with a lot of hard work) get neat.

[Sara in AZ]

More cluttered than not cluttered. I have a hard time finding homes for everything. And I have a really hard time trying to find any time to attack the clutter. School and activities and minimal cleaning takes all my time and energy. On a good day, the kids pick their rooms and stuff up at night and I can keep the living room/kitchen picked up. But we do have a black hole, one extra bedroom that used to be the office but has become a place to stash things we don't know what to do with (filing, office furniture, the wood that will someday be installed on the floor, paintings, some pantry items in the closet that we don't have room for in the kitchen, boxes of photos). It's gotten pretty bad in there and I would be horribly embarrassed for anyone to see it. It's overwhelming and it makes me cry. I am dying to someday have a basement.

[KungFuPanda]

My freezer and basement look like the cluttered house pictures, but the rest of the house is much much better. It doesn't look staged like that kitchen . . .I have curtains and I leave out a few things I use in every room. There is room for improvement, but we're FAR from being hoarders. Nobody here wants stuff more than we appreciate a fresh-feeling space.

[blakereese]

Dirty Secret:

I have 2 laundry baskets in my bedroom that have stuff that hasn't been put away for over a year. It's full of misc stuff that doesn't have a home or is so random it would take me forever to put away. It's the stuff from that one time I actually got all the laundry done, every last bit. When I looked at it the other morning, I realized those baskets have Christmas towels in there. :closedeyes: I'm choosing not to see it, therefore I don't have to put it away.

 

Thank you for saying this! :001_smile:

 

:blush5:

[ChiMomNP]

No clutter. We are minimalists. What has helped that is moving 4 times in 5 years. We purge often and without mercy. There are only 3 of us, 2 adults and 1 teen. If we had a houseful, we'd likely have a lot more stuff.

 

Having said that when my son was little, I didn't worry about a spic n and span house or clutter, children are little for such a short time, there will be plenty of years for de-cluttering. I say be clutterific, have fun, enjoy it. Before you know it they are 13.5 and the toys, legos, stuffed animals, crayons and so forth are pretty much long forgotten.

[Year Round Mom]

I really appreciated that article and just talked to DH about doing that 10 objects out, 1 object in thing. He and I could get rid of 10 shirts or books, for example, and bring 1 new shirt or book in. Or the kids could do that with 10 toys...

 

In terms of what I do to keep our house livable...

1) lower my standards

2) remember that one task only takes a few minutes but makes a huge difference, like emptying the dishwasher, picking up the living room, or starting a load of laundry. When I do only one task, I get so much more done! I don't feel overwhelmed by looking at a list.

3) involve my kids in the pick ups!

[LibraryLover]

We are pretty tidy here. Sometimes it's less so, but I do like tidy. One of my children is an artist, so there are many art supplies about! I try to put my bourgeoisie- self aside and let the creativity flow. :001_smile:

[lailasmum]

We are pretty cluttered. I used to beat my self up about not having a perfect beige house but in practice I don't want that kind of house. This house also has no storage built in and isn't big enough for any decent cupboards so the stuff of life is all very much on display. Sometimes I look at other perfect houses and wonder how they all stay so immaculate but when it boils down to it it's mostly because they aren't at home much and they don't home educate and don't have a 1000 books in their tiny living room or own a ton of puzzles and games that sit on easy to reach and visible shelves.

 

The kitchen always has a snowdrift of junk on the end of the worktop.

[GWOB]

I am a real homeschool mom with imperfect children. Thankfully, I live far out in the country. No one just stops by (thank God!!!). My dust bunnies often sprout legs. Laundry? Let's just not go there:glare:. My house looks like people live and learn here. I have learned to make no apologies for the handprints/writing on the walls/windows. There will be pet hair on the furniture. You may see a kid's underwear in the bathroom. Never look in my bedroom or you will likely be confronted with 27 loads of clean laundry. We don't make beds.

 

My kids are well-fed, well-loved, and well taken care of. They have sanitary places to eat, sleep, and play. I make well-balanced meals. My house will never be in a magazine, but we all pitch in and call it home. It is real.

[Pawz4me]

In between but well toward neat. We're definitely minimalists when it comes to things that don't serve a purpose or get regular use.

 

There are things on my kitchen counters. But our rule is that things left on counters (kitchen or bathrooms) have to be useful things that are used regularly. So that means the toaster and coffee grinder, prescriptions/supplements, containers for dog biscuits, a wire holder with kitchen utensils, etc. We have a place for everything and believe in everything-in-its-place, but that doesn't necessarily mean out of sight.

 

Dirty laundry goes in a hamper and clean laundry gets put away as soon as it comes out of the dryer (which is almost always as soon as the dryer turns off).

 

Dishes are loaded in the dishwasher as they're used, and the dishwasher is turned on/emptied every morning.

 

We actually put our cars in the garage.

 

My downfalls are dusting and mopping. I vacuum the kitchen floor at least once a day and spot-clean any spills. So I never feel it's really dirty, and that makes it easy to let the mopping go for longer than I should. And dust is something I can ignore, and it seems like a useless activity since everything gets dusty again so quickly.

[Cassy]

I'm a fairly neat person and work very hard at keeping our home clean, neat and organised. I always clear up after meals immediately, and try to clean up as much as I can while I'm in the process of cooking. The kitchen floor gets swept at least once a day and mopped once a week. The kitchen bin gets a quick wipe every time I take the rubbish out. I never go up or down stairs without taking something with me that needs to be put away.

 

However, it's a biggish house and I have four messy monsters (five including their father :tongue_smilie:) who constantly spread chaos and destruction faster than I can deal with it. Attempts at getting them to live more tidily/clean up after themselves have not met with much success so far.

 

Having said that, I'm reasonably happy with my cleaning routine. After three years of homeschooling I've finally found a way of keeping on top of the cleaning that gets everything done often enough and reasonably thoroughly without causing me to drop from exhaustion. I've found that basically I have to do some cleaning every day, and I try to keep it to small amounts at a time. During the week I do about half an hour's cleaning each morning before school; I find cleaning first thing the easiest, but, of course, schoolwork has to take priority. I then also do another 20 minutes or so in the afternoon after school has finished. We finish early on a Friday, and DH brings home a takeaway, so I can usually get another hour or so done on a Friday afternoon. This all means that I then only have to spend a couple of hours on a Saturday and Sunday mornings catching up with other cleaning jobs. I have a set routine of what jobs need doing at each moment during the week.

 

I do hate that I'm never 'finished' with housework, but this routine has meant that for the first time since we began homeschooling I've actually kept up with all the housework, even the dusting! Dusting used to be my nemesis, but after reading Parrothead's recommendations here for 'flit-flitting' around with an ostrich feather duster all my dusty problems have been solved :001_smile:. I did also invest a good amount of time over the summer decluttering everywhere, which has also helped my dusting efforts.

Edited October 11, 2012 by Cassy

[mamajudy]

Cluttered.:( And I hate it. There just seems to be so much stuff that has no place. Books and papers are the biggest problem here. They are everywhere!

 

We were actually much more organized when we had 7 people living in a 2 bedroom mobile home. I guess I've just gotten lazy (or old:glare:). Recently, I have been spending a little time each day decluttering. It is so hard to make any progress, though. We seem to mess up quicker than I can clean up.

[The Girls' Mom]

Somewhere in between I guess. Right now we are living in a rental that is about half the size of our previous houses, so we have areas that are extremely cluttered. The basement is a wreck, and the laundry/office area is pretty cluttered. We also have bookshelves everywhere. I generally try to keep the living, kitchen and dining areas fairly uncluttered. After me move into our new house I will do a major purge and deciliter.

[elegantlion]

Not quite as minimal as the gorgeous kitchen, but pretty clean. We have more stuff, yet are organized. Honestly, dh is the neat freak and I like things straightened and aesthetically pleasing.

 

I do have a few boxes of just extra "stuff" that I can't decide whether to keep or give away, but it's all in the basement.

[Parrothead]

Somewhere in between but heading more toward the uncluttered end of the scale.

 

There will be a lot of stuff not coming with us when we move next summer.

[Wheres Toto]

Somewhere in between but a small house, no storage, young kids, homeschooling, and old mommy doesn't lead to neat and clean.

 

My goal is to load the dishwasher right after dinner and run it. Empty it first thing in the morning (while my tea water is boiling) and then dishes can be put in there right away during the day. In reality, I don't do the dinner dishes until the morning so there are usually at least a few dishes in the sink but only on the counter overnight. The one thing dh asks is that I have the dishes done/counter clean when he gets home and wants to cook dinner. We only have 3 feet of counter space so it gets cluttered quickly.

 

 

I do laundry once a week. We have a hamper in the bathroom (so theoretically the kids and dh will actually put there clothes in it, reality is that I'm finding clothes all over), and two hampers in our laundry room - one for whites and one for clothes. On Mondays, I have to pull the garbage cans and the hampers out of the laundry nook so I can reach the washer. I do all the laundry, fold it on my bed and put it away that day or the next morning.

 

Our garage is neater than shown in the pictures but still cluttered. It's the only place to store things no used frequently, including a ton of knickknacks, dishware, and oldest dd's stuff that we want "someday".

 

Our fridge doesn't have much of anything on it. Mostly because stainless steel "look" is evidently not magnetic. :glare: I did put two clear Command clips on the front to hold grocery list and important notices.

 

Our freezer is pretty cluttered because dh cooks extra and we freeze it all the time. Lots of freezer bags and containers.

 

There are shelves everywhere with books, games, curriculum, educational toys, manipulatives, etc. We have a timeline on the front of the fireplace mantel, a chalkboard, a easel pad that sit in front of it. There's writing on many of the walls (and one ceiling??), usually at least a few toys out on the floor although I try to get the kids to clean up at least once a day.

 

We have followed the usual advice for small spaces - look up, put shelves everywhere, etc. BUT, I HATE having to pull out a stepstool every time something needs to be put away. So, things tend to sit out for a while.

 

I did finally deal with the paper clutter by designating a file cabinet drawer that I just throw papers in to sort "someday".

[sparrow]

We're also somewhere in the middle, but I have sneaky clutter :glare:. To the casual observer, we're not too bad. They don't visit my closets or basement.

 

I've been planning on having a garage sale for 10 years. I MOVED with stuff to put in the garage sale :svengo:. The garage sale pile has become a huge blob in a hidden area of the basement. We have a large basement and there is enough junk there to fill a room. I'm finally ready to tackle it. It's all going.

 

Finally, my daughter makes things very difficult to keep the clutter down. She never puts anything away, nor does she throw things away. EVER. She's artistic, creative, and crafty. Given a hot glue gun and some egg cartons, she could build you the Taj Mahal. Unfortunately, once she was done with this absolutely beautiful creation, she'd just walk away from the mess. The scraps, everything, just left. You can look at her incredulously and tell her to clean up and she looks at you as if the thought never would have crossed her mind. "Oh, right." Of course, her idea of "cleaning" is shoving under and in. It's a big problem. Thankfully, her brother is the opposite. Dh and I need to be better about our own clutter tendencies.

 

Thanks for this thread. It has inspired me.

[Jeannie in NJ]

putting our house on the market is what made me do major decluttering. We have a fairly sparse house now in terms of clutter and I love it. So much easier to clean. Also I am just like my mom in that I hate seeing dirty dishes anywhere so they go immediately into the dishwasher and counters are cleaned constantly. Vacuuming and moping are what I have to make myself do (well along with bathrooms lol).

 

My nemesis is paper clutter. I have to be constantly going thru all the papers that come into the house and tossing most of it. I put the file cabinet in the garage which is detached so the papers have to be really important for me to walk out to the garage to put into the file cabinet.

[Georgiana Daniels]

I can't stand clutter--can't STAND it. But now that we've moved and I don't have to keep everything spit spot, bits of clutter have started creeping in. I am enjoying the freedom to not be neurotically clean.

[LisaKinVA]

My kitchen probably only looks like the one pictured right before bedtime. The rest of the day, it's in a constant state of flux. We try to keep routines (picking up, putting away), it's just astonishing how much mess my 3yo can create (it's not all her, my 13yo can't remember to put away a single school book...they wind up all over the kitchen table, the dining room table, the computer desk...UGH.) Our goal is everything neat by 3:30pm...we have "Saturday chores" for dusting, dust-mopping, bathrooms, clean under beds/furniture, so that it never gets too bad...rooms are supposed to be picked up before bed, so minimal work needs to be done in the morning.

 

As long as we do a little every day, the house remains on the tidy-side. However, there are projects (my recipe binder project, house filing, work filing) in various stages (in file boxes, so contained) here and there. The basement is one HUGE project that will hopefully get done over the winter (after dh finishes painting and the kitchen). My big goal is to get the true storage stuff in the locked storage room, get rid of everything that doesn't have a reason for being stored, and have a big play area for the kids downstairs.

[justLisa]

Cluttered somewhat but clean.

 

my laundry is always done....by done I mean I don't have more than a couple loads waiting.

 

My kitchen is always clean. No one is allowed to leave anything on the counters! Really it's the only room I keep totally clean. I still have a large basket of random junk I don't know what to do with in the corner but I choose to not see it.

 

I quilt, and I need pretty stuff around. I have a sewing room that I keep my clutter in and try to keep the main level tidy. We like our stuff :)

[Carol in Cal.]

I prefer the term 'crowded' to 'cluttered'. I don't know that having a bunch of books pretty much everywhere actually qualifies as clutter. I think it is just that I currently lack a library. And so there is something wrong with my house, not with me. That is all.

[thebarefootamazon]

Closer to the neat kitchen but it's not always like that. I mean, right now someone would probably have a heart attack coming into my playroom that is covered in Rice Chex thanks to the baby dumping a box, puzzle pieces, and a couch filled with laundry. It just depends on the room and the time of the day. At night, it's all clean before I go to bed.

[cdrumm4448]

We are somewhere in between. I try to pick up, but by the end of the day I'm like a used up old dishrag. So, I get up early and pick up and run through my Flylady routine. I am trying to tweak it so I pick up at night with the kids helping so I can spend more quality time doing things I like in the morning. Also, if anyone were to come over in the middle of the night or there was some kind of emergency, I wouldn't want "people" to see my house not picked up.

 

Any helpful suggestions regarding how to remember to pick up at night, how to get the kids cheerfully involved, or how to put things where they belong every single time?

[LucyStoner]

Well, I run a clean ship but our space is modest. So not cluttered and full of stuff but not shiny new and spacious. We live in about 1000 sf of finished living space and I keep a storage space and extra dry goods pantry and deep freezer in the garage. That will change when we move soon but it will still be a small space.

 

I have a rhythm to my week.

 

Daily:

Dishes, sweep, wipe off counters and sinks, run any laundry, pack lunches, clean out bags and lunch boxes. Take out kitchen trash and compost as needed. Cook or reheat breakfast and dinner.

 

Monday- mop, dust, change beds, kitty litter, ironing and extra cleaning time in kitchen/dining room.

 

Tuesday- finish meal plan, clean bathrooms, clean fridge and top of fridge.

 

Wednesday- grocery shop, vacuum, clean entryway, wipe down cabinets, mop and dust.

 

Thursday- clean office, kitty litter, take out ALL garbage, change bedding, clean our bedroom.

 

Friday- scrub floors, library returns, bank if needed, balance books/pay bills, clean living room.

 

Saturday- precook/bake.

[AdventureMoms]

I'm more on the cluttered end, but not as bad as the pics in the article. It's gotten a LOT better in the past few weeks since DW insisted on a cleaning lady. The cleaning lady is anti-clutter and not afraid to toss a bunch of stuff in a basket, hand it to me, and say "deal with this, please". It's apparently what I need!

 

That said, the pretty kitchen is at least half the size of my whole house, and we have 5 people including three kids under 5 living in it. Two of those kids are walking tornadoes and too young to pick up after themselves with any effectiveness. We have books, we have toys (not too many, really, but some), we have stuffed animals (too many of those) and we have random cluttery junk. Much of it will fix itself when the kids are bigger.

 

We put dirties in the sink, but wash them before bed. Mornings are insane and I would not be able to deal if I had to wash dishes too. My garage is something of a black hole, as is the utility room in the basement. My bedroom is, though to a lesser extent, because we can keep the crazy babies out of here so we tend to collect the stuff they get into in here.

 

My biggest housekeeping downfall is probably focus. The housekeeper is helping a lot with that, to my surprise. She does all the stuff that bogs me down but has to be done (like cleaning the bathroom or mopping the floors) which helps me focus on some of the clutter issues.

[beezus]

I'd say we tend more to the cluttered side here. My daughter and I both pile things up. We now have about 1,200 sq. feet instead of 900, but we seem to fill up whatever space we have with books and things. If we know we have company coming over, we do perform a frantic cleaning though! :D

[Slojo]

We're cluttered - it is what it is. Got to pick my battles. I homeschool, I work 25 hours a week, I help my aging parents, I'm pregnant and my oldest is 6 and I'm 7 weeks from adding a 3rd kid, our house is small, my husband travels a fair deal, and I get too little sleep as it is. So, I've let it go (my husband has almost let it go - it bugs him more, and I get it - but he doesn't have any more time than I do and it's kind of like "It's either energy spent on the perfect house or energy for more "tea" - apparently he prefers "tea":lol:)

 

I'd say our home looks like some of the pictures in some areas, and homeschooling and the kids being home much more doesn't help. But sanity and downtime are important, too. Stuff gets cleaned; every couple of weeks I tackle "something" but it's still pretty much cluttered and not likely to be at the top of the list in the next 6 months.

 

Interestingly enough, my paid work involves family and youth development, and I know the researchers of the Center on Everyday Lives. I think it's actually pretty cool to "lift the veil" of how folks put together their lives in reality - we're not all living perfect lives with perfect houses (with the mortgage fully paid), always well-behaved and academically gifted children, blissful conflict-free marriages, robust retirement accounts, $100K already in the bank for each child's college education before they reach 10 years old, 4x our yearly salary in savings, money leftover for a great vacation each year, a recent award for "Citizen of the Year," the right mix of closeness and boundaries with our parents or in-laws, and a body weight that has never tipped 120 lbs. Yay for reality...

Edited October 11, 2012 by Slojo

[desertmum]

Cluttered. I'm in the process of decluttering so I've got everything on Ebay- everything but my son and my soul!

 

I have made progress but no nearly enough. But I feel I'm getting there bit by bit. My biggest downfall is putting things away!

[Mandylubug]

Mine is closer to the spotless kitchen and the day typically starts out fairly spotless but as the day progresses, it gets more cluttered. Then the kids go to bed and I turn it back around again...

 

No where even remotely cluttered to the cluttered photos... well, minus my kids rooms some days when they decide what they need is at the bottom of their toy box lol

[Sctigermom]

I'd say in between. My kids rooms look like the pictures, but our living room, school room, and den side of the basement are pretty organized, simple, and tidy. Laundry is my downfall. I am staring at a basket of hang up clothes and a basket of socks that need to be matched. My laundry room has a giant pile that needs to be done and our washer and dryer are constantly going.

[Mommyof4ks]

I am in between. We live here 24/7, or at least 4 of the 5 of us do, and I would be working my self to death to keep it perfect. When I walk I to a perfect home it kind of creeps me out lol.

[fraidycat]

In between. I refuse to own that much stuff!!

 

One nemesis is laundry...kind of. I get it washed and dried. Folded and put away is another story, so I usually have piles of clean laundry. So we have clean clothes, we just have to dig to find them. ;)

 

My BIGGEST nemesis and Paper. Oh My Word. Paper. Piles of it. Oddly enough, homeschooling hasn't made it any worse, though - because we used to get tons of papers home from the school every week, too. But, it's not just that paper. The bills, the junk mail; which when I get the mail doesn't even come IN the house because it goes in the recycle bin on my way in the door, but I rarely ever get the mail. DH and DD are the mail retrievers. Anyway, papers get set wherever they get set. 1/2 wall between entry and living room, kitchen counter, top of master bedroom dresser, or my desk in the schoolroom. I've tried different "corralling" methods, but haven't hit on the correct one for our family yet. :tongue_smilie:

 

In the process of simplifying and decluttering (to a larger degree than ever before), our house looks closer to the messy houses, but my goal is the other pictures. I'm emptying closets and rooms, one at a time. My deal is that I refuse to put anything away unless and until I have a permanent place for it and have decided that we are for sure keeping it. I'm getting closer and closer all the time. My living room is actually usable on a daily basis for about the past week. And really only needs a quick pick-up and vacuum daily, dusting every few days. Finally. We've been here since February and the LR, being the largest, is my sorting center.

 

I have bags and boxes on the go at all times so I can toss stuff in there to go to the thrift store. Right now I have a box (books) and bag (clothes, linens) in the LR and a larger box in the dining room (dishes, cookware and miscellaneous) that are out and visible. I'm just about ready to tackle the kitchen cabinets and laundry room for the first pass through the house. I hope to be done by the end of October. Make another quick pass throughout November and December to round up any strays I missed on this go round, while concentrating mostly on the garage, and have a calm serene house by Christmas time with every item we own having a "home", so it's easy to keep clean and neat at all times. This will be my Christmas present to myself mostly, but will also bless the family because I will be easier to be around. :tongue_smilie:

[2_girls_mommy]

We're somewhere between those two. I actually have a strong dislike for clutter but I'm resigned to it now--at least until this kid phase is done. My clutter is necessary/life clutter though--books, toys, homeschool material, etc.

 

This is us. Not as many closets here as I would like: no pantry.

[IsabelC]

I'm a minimalist at heart, and I like almost everything I own to be functional. When my daughter was asked to bring one item that we didn't need to a swap activity, I was forced to send her with something we did need, because we actually didn't have anything that was any good but we didn't want in the house.

 

However, since I live with four people who are confirmed clutterbugs, our house is one big compromise.

[fraidycat]

 

 

Finally, my daughter makes things very difficult to keep the clutter down. She never puts anything away, nor does she throw things away. EVER. She's artistic, creative, and crafty. Given a hot glue gun and some egg cartons, she could build you the Taj Mahal. Unfortunately, once she was done with this absolutely beautiful creation, she'd just walk away from the mess. The scraps, everything, just left. You can look at her incredulously and tell her to clean up and she looks at you as if the thought never would have crossed her mind. "Oh, right." Of course, her idea of "cleaning" is shoving under and in. It's a big problem. Thankfully, her brother is the opposite. Dh and I need to be better about our own clutter tendencies.

 

Thanks for this thread. It has inspired me.

 

:lol: Are we raising the same children. My DD is my clutterbug, too. She literally will leave her "droppings" all over the house. People laugh when I call my kids by their "group nickname/petname' - Rodents, as in "come on Rodents, it's time to go home", but they just are! They nibble through things, but don't finish it, leave droppings everywhere, and can just generally be pests. The nibbling is not necessarily just food, but you know....unfinished "projects", or finished but not cleaned up projects, etc.

 

DS has neater tendencies. He's not a neatfreak by any stretch of the imagination, but he is definitely more organized and the foundation is there for me to build on as far as cleaning and organizing. It was born in to him. His sister, not so much. She takes after her Dad - and that is not a tongue in cheek "blame" on either of them. They just don't require the level of organization and control that DS and I do.

[sparrow]

:lol: Are we raising the same children. My DD is my clutterbug, too. She literally will leave her "droppings" all over the house. People laugh when I call my kids by their "group nickname/petname' - Rodents, as in "come on Rodents, it's time to go home", but they just are! They nibble through things, but don't finish it, leave droppings everywhere, and can just generally be pests. The nibbling is not necessarily just food, but you know....unfinished "projects", or finished but not cleaned up projects, etc.

 

DS has neater tendencies. He's not a neatfreak by any stretch of the imagination, but he is definitely more organized and the foundation is there for me to build on as far as cleaning and organizing. It was born in to him. His sister, not so much. She takes after her Dad - and that is not a tongue in cheek "blame" on either of them. They just don't require the level of organization and control that DS and I do.

 

It sounds like we could be!

 

Yesterday dd and I tackled a coffee table drawer in the living room. Apparently, she has been stuffing things in there for months :glare:. It was a little like encountering that mouse nest in your garage. Bits of soft felt, something shiny, old Happy Meal toys. I asked if we could just dump the drawer, she said, "probably" and then *my* "oh, we should save this" personality took over. We are a horrible combination!

[tyydae]

In-between most of the time. Hubby is ex-military so he is all too glad to do most of the heavy cleaning.

 

As of recently, I've stopped being so concerned with worry about the way my home look, and going ferociously after my dreams. Plus, there is always DH. He's only going to let the house become so "messy" before stepping in.

[Susan in TX]

Closer to the neat kitchen but it's not always like that. I mean, right now someone would probably have a heart attack coming into my playroom that is covered in Rice Chex thanks to the baby dumping a box, puzzle pieces, and a couch filled with laundry. It just depends on the room and the time of the day. At night, it's all clean before I go to bed.

 

Same here. I have a 15 month old and I babysit my 20 month old granddaughter. On the days I babysit by the end of the day my livingroom/diningroom usually looks like a tornado hit it. I do try to get everything put back in order before bed but there are some days that I'm just too tired to tackle folding the laundry and so it sits in the baskets in the livingroom.

 

My bedroom is one space that is always neat, except for my husband's side. He has his little corner of clutter that is his space and I don't touch it. The kid's bedrooms are like the clutter picture's in the article. D do insist that the younger kids clear their floor before bed, but I let the teenagers keep their rooms however they want.

 

Susan in TX

[myfunnybunch]

Somewhere in between.

 

There is often a little "clutter" (think a stack of books or mail), but it's usually in transition. A pile of mail to take to the office, a stack of hand-me-downs to go to my sister's, a folded basket of laundry waiting to be put away. Things like that. It's never quite spotless, but the clutter never takes over either because we're constantly putting it away.

 

Cat

[Nestof3]

Honestly, if we had a large house like pictured in the beautiful kitchen thread, it probably would look like that.

 

I find it hard to keep no clutter when my boys share a tiny room, we use the coat closet as a pantry, we have one family room and no dining room. I am certain that my house would be immaculate if I actually had space.

 

As it is, it's pretty clutter-free considering, and I could not handle most of those photos I saw. My parents have far more useless stuff, but they also have so much room to store it.

 

Also, I think a lot of the way a house looks is based on upkeep. We live in an older home -- a starter home -- and it still needs so much work. My husband does most himself, but honestly, he doesn't have the patience, so it never looks as nice as it could.

[KidsHappen]

I am somewhere in the middle but way too cluttered for my taste. If it was up to me there would not be anything on any surfaces or anything on the floors. Unfotunately, I live with 5 other people who really don't care. They are all busy coming and going to various classes, jobs and activities that they barely have time to come in and change and go again and they are not motivated to try and find the extra time and energy to clean up just because it bothers me. And with my chronic physical and mental health issues, I simply cannot keep things up to my standards. It is very frustrating.