People who lives in uncluttered spotless houses

[biglips]

tell me your routine please???

as i live in a tidy-ish house as some days its tidy and other days its a tip....i love to able have a solid routine through the week.

thanks

[thenightsky]

bumping out of curiosity.

[TheJollyPirate]

..and another bump from me.

[whomovedmychocolate]

You won't get any answer, they'll be too busy bleaching their bathtubs.

[CuppaTeaJanice]

Do you really want to live in a spotless house though?

I have friends who live like this, and I very rarely invite them round for coffee, because I worry they will judge my untidy lived-in style of housekeeping. So they miss out on all the fun times, gossip etc., and all my fellow messy friends get loads of invitations. Many of my other friends feel the same, we just can't be bothered to deep clean and scrub the entire house just so we feel comfortable having a clean freak tidy friend round.

[defineme]

I can tell you how to the tidy thing. The first thing I do when I get in the house is put all bags and so on out the way.

We tidy after every small activity rather than waiting til the end of the day. Things like post don't get left on the side -once opened they get put away even if that's just into the things to do box in the kitchen cupboard.
I clear the kitchen side and so before I leave the house in the morning. I have a quick go at the loo and straighten up (literally 5 mins total before we leave in the morning. I stick the washer onbefore I go out and hang up when I get in.
I have large boxes with lids for different
toys in our conservatory-farm/play food and
so on-lids so much better than open baskets.
I have many laundry baskets and it's all kept in the spare room out of the way.
The kids know where to put dirty laundry and clearthe table and stuff.
I think little and often is the only way. It's much better to do it in the morning before work or before kids go to bed-lovely to be able to sit down at 830pm and not have ironing to do.
If you gavn't time in the week, then big jobs first thing Saturday and leave rest of weekend for nice things.

[biglips]

defineme - thanks for your tips as that is so clear for my muddle head! . maybe thats where im going wrong as i dont tidy up till the end of the day or the following day and then things started building up.

I do tidy up as i can go days tidying and then suddenly i slide abit and it get all messy again...so in my house i feel like ive got huge jobs to do every day . The bathroom is the tidiest and then my living room and then the rest of teh house, well i cant see my table in the dining room, the dishes needs to be put away in the kitchen which i will do in a min, and my bedroom - the laundry takes over!!.

I hate cluttered houses ie like mine as it does stress me out looking for things. I polish once a week and hoover every day, the longest is 2 days not to hoover.

im getting there but would love not a totally spotless house but a tidy uncluttered house and totally have half an hour tidying up per day maybe 1 hour on a bad day......or am i taking the ?.

[Dexterrocks]

I try and try to live in a clutter free house but fail every time. The mess stresses me out and I am constantly sorting, recycling, passing on, chucking out etc but I still can't get on top of it. As biglips says, it stays under control for a wee while and then it all decends into chaos again.
I have boxes with lids, filing trays, drawers for pens, pencils etc but still order evades me.
Is it just built into my personality??
I don't want sterile and inhospitable - I just want to have a vague idea where stuff is and to be able to eat my evening meal at the table!!

[biglips]

yeah exactly Dex.. as ill be forever tidying up but i will have a go about tidy up as think little and often and not leave it till the end of the day.

i havent started yet as been out today and doing paperwork atm....but the dishes is washed and the living room is tidied.

the thing annoyed me is bits and pieces around the house and its me whos doing it!!

[bosch]

Our house is by no means uncluttered and spotless (ha ha ha) but a couple of things that make a difference are:

We moved the boys toy cupboard upstairs so that now they only have a few drawers full of toys downstairs. They can still play with lots of toys downstairs, but it's a reduced amount so quicker for them to clear up. Or they can bring a wicker basket of toys downstairs but again not out of the question that they refill it and take it back upstairs at bedtime. Oh, and it's really important that the children know where their stuff goes or otherwise when you ask them to tidy up, they just bring you every single item and say 'where does this go'...

My dining table is always covered in paperwork until we invite someone round to dinner. Then magically, I know what to do with 80% of it, and the remaining 20% can be hidden away. Sometimes I think I might invite somebody for dinner that I don't really like just so I'll tidy the table

[biglips]

yes i do have the 2 yrs old dd2's toys downstairs and it will be slowly going upstairs but its tidy enough. Well ive cleared my table today and first time in weeks as we've all be so ill - scarlet fever and tonisillits - we had breakfast and tea in the living room, so back to normal and ive been blitzing through today. i just wish i can keep it up and not slide and it take me back to doing it for hours again!

[grumpypants]

I have four dcs and without storage we would be lost. The house looks brilliant and uncluttered - I 'lose' presents that are not played with/ need to be part of a set etc rather than having toys everyehere, and we have lots of cupboards and shelving. The dcs like it this way - if they want to do something, all the jigsaw pieces are in one spot/ all the cuddly toys are together/ etc etc. Laminate flooring. White walls and furniture. But I don't do clutter - no ornaments, MacDonalds toys etc and clothes get hung up, shoes put away. It's quite easy once you plan it.

[Acanthus]

Our house is not spotless but it is uncluttered. You have to

• have a place for everything
  
• tidy as you go
  
• keep toys upstairs (when children older) or keep them to one room and if you can't tidy it nightly, close the door (when younger)
  
• never move to another room without taking something with you. It becomes a habit in the end.
  

And, accept that you are the only one who will do this. Even stuff placed at the bottom of the stairs will be walked past by its owners, because it is actually invisible to everyone except you

[Acanthus]

I don't do clutter either.

Big basket for shoes.

Tidy the kitchen before bed, even if you don't wash up, stack it by the sink for whenever.

[GooseyLoosey]

Clutter free houses are not actually clutter free - you just can't see the clutter.

My house is always being referred to as being super-tidy. In reality I have a few places where I dump clutter. I am also quite ruthless about throwing things out - when I look at clutter I ask myself "do I really need that" and if the answer is no, it goes in a large bag for the charity shop or the bin.

I am also a great believer in tidying as you go along rather than having a bid tidy at the end of the day. Same really with cleaning.

[grumpypants]

Also, each child has a scrapbook and I paste in pictures (the nice ones) from nursery/ school/ home each year. So, after a decent period on the fridge - bin or book. We use the libraray and only buy special books; tbh I don't really get how other people live in really messy houses. Works both ways!

[TheEarthIsFlat]

Our house looks untidy because we don't have organised storage space. Also, it needs decorating so even when it's tidy it looks messy. Not fair!! What age do people get their children to keep all their toys upstairs?

Love grumpypants idea of the scrapbooks. We have a box for each of the children but it's a bit of a dumping ground. grumpypants, if you're still here what do you do about objects - like 1st gloves or a small thing they made? Would you keep these or take a photo?

[Dexterrocks]

Earth, I saw a tv programme that encouraged a mother trapped by trying to store sentimental items to take a photo of all of them and then "display" them on a digital photoframe, with the picture changing automatically every so often. An expensive solution I know but there would be an option to take a photo of all these things and store them on disks rather than having boxes and boxes of pictures and gloves etc.
Another friend cut a scrap from every favourite item of clothing from her daughter's wardrobe and is gradually making it up into a quilt. There is no way I could have cut up any of my daughter's clothes. I keep a box in the loft of items I just can't bring myself to pass on, otherwise I pass them on to little girls I really like.

[biglips]

grumpy - good idea about the scrapbook as ive got a few pictures that ive kept for the past few years so thanks

[grumpypants]

My pleasure! Much easier, and the dcs actually like looking thro them.

[grumpypants]

Hi Earth - we have a Ikea display cabinet, and the really lovely baby stuff goes on their shelf - baby Uggs, christening bracelet. Plus I had a huge bag of must keep clothes, and then went through it and chose the ones that really were lovely, some of which are on dolls, and others are to be made into cushion covers - you know, aplliqued on.

[Orissiah]

• Scrapbook for the pictures/paintings of DD's that are keepsakes
  
• Box for DD's other keepsakes
  
• Storage boxes for all toys in each room (DD still 2 so likes to play all over the house)
  
• All post gets opened each day and taken upstairs to the study/guest room when read - DH and I have our own "in boxes"
  
• Tidy up little and often during the day
  
• I try and tidy up and wash up before we leave the house each day
  
• Train everyone that everything gets put back after use (does not always work so I accept that this may very well end up being me doing this)
  
• Clean away and wipe down surfaces after each use
  

Big thing for me: LITTLE AND OFTEN

[Orissiah]

One last thing:

• Go round the house with a black bin liner every week - only takes 10 mins now - I'm always chucking stuff out and 99% of the time no one else in the house notices so :-)

[Unprune]

I think one of the main things to do is to not buy things. Just stop bringing things into the home. Don't look on Freecycle either. Ruthlessly recycle everything:

charity shop
pass on clothes to the right-sized children
throw out things which no longer work, don't store them in the hope of salvaging the bits
either that or fix things immediately

And make sure things have a place.

I do not practise this and I live in a clutter.

The big one for me is my MIL visiting with a mitbringsel - every time I see her, she gives me something, she can't visit without a little present. If I look around, it is her little presents that don't have a real place, don't significantly add to our lives. I sound churlish but I have a pink garden flamingo, a porcelain slug-trap snail, any number of sturdy jute bags (she thinks they are useful, and I agree that one or two are, but five or ten are not)....I could go on.

[nickytwotimes]

Ours is by no means spotless, but it is tidy adn uncluttered.

We tidy up CONSTANTLY.

That's it.

And chuck/give away/sell stuff.

[BeenBeta]

Yes we tidy constantly as well. Never walk past anything out of place without picking it up. Get kids to put their stuff away and of course limit their toys/food to one room.

Clean kitchen every day and have a really good clean everywhere else once a week and it is pretty good but not spotless all of the time.