How is your house organised, how does it flow?

[NotABanana]

Our house doesn't work for me. Moving is not an option at the moment, though I long too, so I have to find a way to make it work for us.

Come in the house and on the left is the door into the lounge. The dining room (used for piano, computer, book case, bureau, hamsters) is separated by an archway (doors not on) and you go right, into the kitchen. Off the kitchen is a door to the hall way, which is opposite the front door.

The stairs are opposite the front door and DS2's room is just off centre to the top of the stairs. Either side of his room is DS1 and DD's rooms. Opposite DD's room is the main bathroom and to the side of DS1's room is our room.

There is no where to put stuff so DD has had a game from school since lat Friday and we haven't got around to playing it. Just tried and will get Dh to do it with her when DS2 is occupied.

Our room gets to be a dumping ground until we can get things put away. We also have an utility room, downstairs loo, downstairs cupboard and a big airing cupboard.

Every day is the same with me tying to get the house looking half decent and it gets me down.

MIL tells me it shouldn't bother me but it does and that is just the way it is.

I am going to bath the kids now.

[poodlepusher]

Can you put a false ceiling in your hall to make a storage area?

I know it sounds ugly but I've seen it done and they can be removed if you use plasterboard and don't put things in it that are very heavy.

Can you change how you use the dining room? Would the bookcase fit into your bedroom for instance?

If you get some graph paper and draw your floor plan as if the house were empty and then cut out bits for the major pieces of furniture so you can see where they currently are, and where they might go, that might also help you visualise improvements.

[NotABanana]

I didn't understand what you meant by the false ceiling.

I think the bookcase is too big for our room and we have a smaller matching one in there already. The compute and piano can't go anywhere else either.

Will think about doing the floor plans (when I have a minute or 30.)

I would love to empty the house and start again with putting it back.

[CrackerOfNuts]

Do you need to have a big clear out ??

Can you access the dinning room throught the hall at all ??

[poodlepusher]

Sorry, it wasn't that clear. Its like you put a shelf up, all along the hallway so if you looked up it would just be as if the ceiling were lower. Then you cut a square / rectangle shape out of the space above a door way to create an access hole.

I've also seen this done under beds - so they are on a raised platform which is really a lot of storage space.

I'm not very good at explaining the technicalities of it in print. sorry.

[NotABanana]

You can go up the hall in to the kitchen and do an immediate left into the dining room.

Not a lot of things that should go really except for baby euqipment and children's clothes, toys and shoes but they ar emainly in the garage.

[poodlepusher]

Aha. How about you convert your garage into another living / family room?

[Quattrocento]

Random thoughts:

(i) Could you knock the dining room through to the kitchen and then take the door out between the kitchen to the main hall? Open plan gives more space and taking the door out gives more space for cupboards etc. You could maybe even fit a bookcase in the hall on the other side?

(ii) Is there any potential for a loft conversion? Stick a room up there for one/both of your DSs and that could free up two bedrooms - one of which could be a study

(iii) Downstairs extension? Maybe a conservatory? If you have a wall along one side you could use it as either a study or a music room

(iv) More practically and less expensively, underbed storage boxes for toys?

[Shitemum]

How old are your DC?
Could the boys share a room to free up one for computer piano etc?

Is your main problem lack of good storage space or junk that doesn't get put away?

Or is it that the dining room has too many different uses and is also a thoroughfare and right next to the kitchen so you are always looking at the junk??

I love re-arranging spaces and have often made plans of rooms with cut-out furniture to see where things could go. I live in a cluttered house but am looking forward to a big clear-out soon when we move!

[MamaG]

Go into hall, Dining room on left, living room straight ahead, kitchen beyond. Stairs to go up go between living room and dining room.

In my dining room I have the table and in teh alcoves next to the fire, I have cupboards about 3 feet high full of books, games, craft stuff then above I have shelves full of books.

Living room - small toybox. Sofa, chair, computer cupboard, stereo cupboard, TV bench thing. Alcoves either side of fire again - one side has a CD sotrage cupbard (looks like a slim cupboard) with one high shelf near picture rail full of books, other side I have a bulit in cupboard (*victorian terrace) with a shelf above full of books.

Kitchen: kitchen stuff.

In the (thin) hall I have a shoe rack which holds about 8 pairs of shoes neatly, coat hooks above that and a shelf above that, full of hats/gloves/brollies.

DD's school bag will be chucked on the shoe rack, as will my handbag!

What are you struggling to find space for in particulkar?

[NotABanana]

DH wants to convert garage into a play room but everything boils down to the lack of spare £ at the moment.

Not sure how (i) would work as * wall may cause a prob

door*door
|
|
dining room arch lounge
arch
|
| ___

Same prob for conservatory, lack of £.

Have underbed storage boxes but could fit a couple more under.

Boys are 7 and nearly 3 and I know the younger one would wake the older one. Something to think of in the summer hols though when sleep issues not so pressing.

I think we have the wrong furniture and could possibly use more storage but what really? For years I wanted the wooden shelving thing from Argos where you could store 9 boxes for toys but DH said too dear. now it is double what it was then.

[NotABanana]

That didn't work.

To the left of where it says dining room ,etc is the actual dining room. Wall under the *. arch is the 2 sets of 2 verticle lines.

[poodlepusher]

Have you looked at IKEA storage? They deliver now and it may be cheaper than Argos

[KatyMac]

Could you block up the door to the kitchen and move either computer or piano out to that space prehaps into under the stairs?

[NotABanana]

I had a look today and what I would have liked was about £55 and they didn't deliver that item. We looked a few weeks ago and they didn't deliver it then either. We are just about near enough to go and get it but we would need to be sure it would help.

[MamaG]

Could you do what I suggested on the bedroom tidying thread, put away LOADS of hte DCs toys and rotate them? Iused to do it for DD and it sas great - I put 2/3 of her toys in boxes in my wardrobe (cough: walk in wardrobe that is: cough) and every month I'd box up the toys in her room and replace with some from teh wardrobe, putting the "current" toys to the back.

She loved rediscovering old toys and it helped keep the place tidy

[NotABanana]

Cupboard unders tairs too small for either.

DH put loads of stuff in the roof but I can't go up there and they might as well be gone then.

[Shitemum]

It sounds to me like you need to de-clutter and get rid of a lot of stuff.
Have you done that recently?

[NotABanana]

Kind of. Hard to do as we have a lot of stuff but most we still need.

[KatyMac]

Really

A door is about 800 wide - that should be big enough for a desk?

& if the under stairs is open the piano might fit - 800 plus 900 = 1.7m which is about 6ft 6 (I think?)

[foxythesnowfox]

The storage bags you suck the air out of are good, you can store loads of clothes/bedding/soft toys that way.

Check out Tesco for seagrass baskets and the like. Put them down the side of your sofa and fill them with toys. Also double up as side-tables.

Double up wardrobe hanging with those two-tier hanging thingies.

When I'm on a tidy up mission I work my way round first putting everything in the room its meant to go, then tackle one room at a time.

Use wall space. We have a coatstand which attaches to the wall. There is a shelf on top to put things, hooks for coats and a bar to hang scarves on. Another stand underneath for shoes and bags, and a basket for gloves and hats.

Plastic boxes of different sizes for the playdoh, pens and 'creative stuff'.

Label up plastic boxes for action figures, cars, animals etc. Helps everyone tidying up.

Is any of this helpful or shall I shut up?

[blithedance]

I think the secret is to make every inch of space work, especially the walls. We are in a 3bed semi and don't have any "hall and landing" space. My DH is a bit drill-happy, so we have shelves (not bought ones, just plank-and-brackets) everywhere.

Suppose you put an entire wall of shelves up in the dining room, or at least say the upper part of the wall above piano level. You could get three really long shelves which would eat up loads of books and bits (use boxes and magazine files), freeing up lower-down space for toy storage. Maybe swap the big bookcase for the low one from your bedroom, and have smaller toys in cheap clear plastic boxes in it.

[CrackerOfNuts]

If you can access the dinning room through the hall, then i'd say to put a wall between living and dinning room.

I have just had this done and it is soooooooooo much better already. The junk is now all in the dinning room waiting to be sorted, and my living room is clean and tidy (ok slight lie, it will be clean and tidy soon).

Also, hire a skip, a big one, and have a really really good declutter. I have done that today, and have nearly filled a builders size skip. I did have old furniture to throw out, but even so.

[muppetgirl]

Putting things in storage that you don;t use

Hire a skip and have a bloomin good clear out -do you really need everything you have? (We lived in a 1 up (but split in 2 to give 2 bedrooms. The smallest, ds's, couldn't even fit a single bed) 1 down house with a bathroom and kitchen. You'd be amazed at what you don't actually need)

Beds/sofas with storage (a friend has a large sqaure footstool that doubles as a toy box)

Shelves above doors, give you a little space to put books or things the children need but don't use that often

Try and fit drawers in your stairs and use for shoes, scarves etc -saw this once and it really works!

Less toys in the house, keep others in the garage/shed and rotate.

[blithedance]

Put coathooks everywhere you can as well, and key-hooks and some utility hooks so you can hang up brooms, ironing board etc tidily. Things like this iron-hanger from Ikea are fantastic.

[NotABanana]

The computer and/or piano won't fit in the under stairs cupboard.