Tidy dining table, is it possible?

[Elmo230885]

Just wondering if other people have clear and tidy dining tables?
Ours is never clear, ever, despite eating all our meals at it. I'm thinking maybe our problem is that there's only 4 of us ( 2 adults, 2 small children) but its a really big table. In order to serve tea tonight (or dinner if I'm trying to be posh) I've had to move a colouring book, play doh cutters and three gnomes!
I'm sure its clean and tidy prior to bed!

Yes it's possible. Move it all on to a dining chair. until the heap becomes so big it topples over

Mine is just for eating. So it’s always clear.

OP get a smaller dining table and find somewhere else to put all the stuff you’re keeping on the table.

Not at the moment! Pre-lockdown it was cleared occasionally, but now we just move everything to one and and eat the at the other!

(There are 4 of us plus a baby in a high chair on the end, and the table seats 8-10, so...)

@biscuitsanddiddums the only thing on our dining table is a completed LEGO hogwarts castle, not sure where to put it, it's huge.

It does seem to be getting bigger... I have suggested she might like to clear some shelf space in the bedroom of doom... but I’m worried about the footprint!!

Clutter does my head in! I make the dc tidy away their books, pens, toys, cups and whatever else they leave on there as soon as I see it if they're not using it. We tidy and wipe it before and after every meal too.

I wish I could say the same for the rest of the house!

It has to be clear or where would we eat? It gets used between meals but always cleared then after. I hate clutter, it causes me stress.

Mine has actually never been so clear, and it's all thanks to the lockdown cos DH can't come home from work every night and dump everything on there!

Usually his coat is hung over the back of the chair, laptop bag gets dumped, gym bag gets dumped, shoes shoved under the chair and whatever other crap he's come home with gets chucked on there too...despite walking past the coat shoe and bag rack on the way in the house 😡

Hardly ever! I do a full sweep every so often and obviously clear away an area for us to eat but its generally full of lego, books and random bits of paper. It does drive me potty to see it full of stuff but I can't seem to keep on top of it!!

Well it can be done. We’ve gone from an “always covered in crap” dining table to a consistently clear one.

Moved two months ago. In the old house it was always always full of rubbish, post, the last three things we’d done, clean washing etc... then we moved and here we have a separate dining room (old house it was in the living room). We eat every meal at the table and do do other things - work, crafts etc on the table, but we’ve just got into the habit of clearing it after every activity or meal . I love it. The effect it has had on my mood at meal-prep time is amazing. Just have to cook the dinner and then plonk it on the table, it’s fab.

Two months on and I do think the habit is ingrained now! Can’t say the same for the rest of the house though..... post still gathers and I SWEAR actually breeds on the kitchen counter next to the fruit bowl. But you can’t win em all eh?!

Im glad it's not just us!
We are whilst the gnomes stared from the other end of the table.

Just don't get me started on how much stuff I had to move to be able to get in the bath!!!

Erm, it's usually clear ish.

At the moment, there are some Easter egg colouring ins to go in the window, my new book, my shopping list, a handful of pens and a couple of hand creams on it (plus my cuppa).

It quite often houses other randomness too but I try to send those items 'home' - usually with dd2- as they're finished with.

There's 2 of us here. Ds and I.

We have an extendable table that's very Small when down.
It in lounge and can love against a wall over a set of drawers. It often has laptop on it if we are working, right now it's moved away from wall and into room a bit and has a puzzle on it.
Sometimes it has board games, sometimes just crap!

But we do have to keep putting things away as it can only be used for one thing at a time so I guess a smaller one does have its uses in the tidy stakes!

Table is always clear but there's only 3 of us and 4 chairs so the redundant chair is where everything gets chucked. Only when it spills over is when I put stuff where it goes 😬

Usually, but at moment piled high with home study stuff

Mine is clear. We have a dresser which accumulates stuff on a daily basis though.

My mum gave me a shoe box which she had wrapped in brown paper for me to put documents in so they can be out of sight until they are filed away. We had a pile of documents that had been building up for a few years. Only took 20 minutes to file them all away- made me realise how we are such a pair of procrastinators!

At the moment DH has a computer screen and a few bits on it but it's a long table so we sit at the other end for meals. Usually it's cleared every night and will go back to being cleared all of the time when lockdown is over and we aren't WFH. I have my computer set up at the other end of the room. Unfortunately we don't have space for both to be WFH away from the dining table.
All of us have a box each that things from the dining table can be put into before meals and put away out of the boxes before bed ready to start the next day with everything put back where the should be.

Ours tends to be clear. It's in the kitchen and I hate coming into a messy kitchen, so everything gets tidied up several times a day, especially last thing at night. Gets me cross in the morning when I come downstairs to mess.
Same with the living room. (Kitchen and living room are connected by a movable door, which tends to be open....so it looks like an open plan area.)
There's only three of us, though. We have a study to work in and once our extension is done, DS's toys will hopefully move from the living room to his new bedroom.

DH is a teacher so our is usually filled with piles of exercise books and essays in various stages of waiting to be marked or waiting to be returned to school. During lock down it became DHs teaching space and DD'S school work space. In the holidays it usually has board games on it. Earlier this week it was filled with lego. It's rarely without something on it, although I do try to clear it on my day off, or at least condense it a bit but I don't like to mess with DH's work piles too much as he has them in a system that only he is aware of!

We can still eat at the table as there's only 3 of us and it's a table for 6 so we keep the stuff to one end.

Open plan downstairs here and the table is usually full of stuff that either DH or I have picked up from the floor. Mainly Lego and paper (art work, school work etc etc). But it’s cleared once a day (now we’re in lockdown) so we can all eat at it...but that sometimes involves pilling stuff on one of the chairs because they’re coming straight out again. Can’t get too excited about it. I’m far from tidy but nobody’s ever recoiled, refused to come in for coffee and cake (pre lockdown!) or decided to tidy us up.

The gnomes have multiplied!

I've had to move a colouring book, play doh cutters and three gnomes!

That sounds relatively tidy to me.
My parents had a tidy table... but at the expense of the dreaded "bottom drawer". That meant everything on the table at dinner time was swept into the "bottom drawer". It just meant the "bottom drawer" had to be regularly tidied out instead.

@Witchend that drawer is known as the Shit Drawer in my household...full of all manner of crap & eventually sorted out (every now and again) by me in a huff!