What kind of house did you grow up in?

[Houseofvelour]

And has it affected how you keep your own house?

My childhood home was very messy and chaotic so I keep my home ridiculously clean and ordered, even with two toddlers.

I grew up in a very minimalist house , no personality, no photos, no nick nacks. Beige everything. No toys or anything downstairs - basically no evidence of the the children who lived there.

Our house is full of colour, photos, 'things' and you can tell children/family live here. It's not messy or dirty in the slightest - just homely and cosy rather than a bare house.

Far too tidy I found, I had to put all things away immediately after use, even books from the coffee table when I was mid-reading it

Therefore as soon as I moved out I changed this. I leave a book or magazine on the coffee table, a mug on the side of the kitchen instead of cleaning straight away, washing Isn’t folded immediately.

I can be super tidy and do it often but the sight of something out of order still thrills me 30 years later.

The house I grew up in was filthy. My mum had MH issues so quite often the mess was just left to build and build and then she’d suddenly decide the mess was too much and make us all participate in a mass tidy up and then the cycle would begin again.

I think because of this I associate mess with bad mental health, and mess makes me anxious. I quite often say “mess = stress”. I’m not a super clean person by nature so my house is rather “lived in” but I always tidy at the end of the day to return it to a standard or I’ll be upset until it’s clean.

Messy, clutter everywhere and everything looked shabby and worm.

In contrast, I’m very neat and tidy. Minimal and everything had a place. Plenty of pictures up though and items with special memories. We just don’t tend to buy stuff that won’t have a home to avoid clutter.

Children are free to keep their rooms as they please.

Quite a tidy house and I was made to hoover every day and other cleaning at the weekend. As an adult I keep a clean house, but struggle with keeping that tidy and I certainly won’t clean every day - only do stuff like washing up and sweeping the kitchen floor every day.

You should read 'The House We Grew Up In' By Lisa Jewell.
I think my attitude to cleaning and tidying is similar to my mum's, enough for it to look good at first glance but no too much effort put in.

A bit grubby, but my mum was always stressing and going on about tidying and clutter so we thought she was a neat freak! I think she was actually just overwhelmed and unable to cope.

But it set my what's normal compass a bit wonky, so my own house is disgusting yet I don't mind it's been a problem in the past. I've got to a point now where I do notice quite a stark difference in my own housekeeping compared to other people, and actually if I go back to my mum's house it seems dirty to me now. But I can't seem to maintain the level of cleanliness that other people do as normal.

Luckily DH's parents are quite like mine so he doesn't get too stressed out by it but that does mean neither of us are very good at keeping on top of it!

Detached property in Primrose Hill until I was 8 when my parents split-up. Then an absolute shit-hole in Southern France until the age of 14 when I came back to the UK and lived in my grandparents farmhouse on their Dorset farm.

I grew up in a tidy house. It was me who helped tidy it. I didn't have much, not because we couldn't afford it but because my mum pup herself first every day of the week. So she had 3 horses and we had next to nothing.

Nowadays I live in a bit of a messy and not overly clean house (as in, I don't clean every day, not piled high with rubbish and manky) - I am autistic though and find keeping on top of my house overwhelming. My kids have things. Toys and tech. I went over the top when they were little but I managed to find a balance somewhere along the line.

A shit one. Okay as youngsters but as DSis and I got older mum quit being mum. We got dinner most nights but if mum wasn't hungry and there was rarely anything in the cupboards for us to make our own.
The dinners she did cook were mainly done when her BF was home from working away and it had to be what he liked, not us, so the nights we ate it was braising steak (boak!) tins of processed peas (double boak!) and I can barely even say the words.... tinned potatoes (fucking nasty!).

House wise, her BF (now DH) was a grumpy man who would get angry having to look for his stuff or put them away so everything got dumped on the tables, sideboard and kitchen countertops. You can no longer see the furniture under the piles. Mum stopped clearing and cleaning like she used to when we were little. It's Kim and Aggie territory these days. Mum's just as bad too. It's not just stepdad's stuff.

So, in my home it's relatively clean and tidy, I cook multiple meals every single day and make sure my kids not only eat, but I'm happy to compromise on meals so we all get something we like most days.
I have a phobia (?) about not having enough food in so I have bursting full cupboards, freezers and a huge fridge and I even keep cardboard boxes full of spare tins just in case. I've enough pasta and rice stored to ride out the zombie apocalypse.
I also buy my children clothes, something which my mum lost interest in doing when I was about 9 or 10. Nothing fit me and I wore friends old clothes. Mum didn't even bother sourcing us hand me downs.
My own kids have nice (although not necessarily branded) clothes that fit and look decent.
I also get given a whole wardrobe of hand me downs from a friend who has the most amazing (and expensive) stuff like footie kits and brand name items for DS. If I didn't, I would buy his.

Our parents form our adult lives, but not in the way we would think. Many of us live the opposite because we know how much it sucks.

**but not if mum wasn't hungry

A large Georgian flat.

Insanely clean, not an exaggeration, but my mum has since been diagnosed with an OCD although this wasn’t in its full throes in my childhood. The menopause seemed to really ramp it up for her.

One of 8 in a maisonette, later a small house. My parents are the sort who are never still, always a cloth in hand or doing some sort of maintenance so home was immaculate and really, really organised but part of that was we didn’t have the space for and couldn’t afford clutter.

It did teach me not to be lazy, I do keep my place very clean, not mum standards but it’s commented on by guests. That being said I do put pressure on myself. As much as I admire people who don’t seem to care I just can’t take it on. I can’t relax until all the ‘jobs’ are done and the jobs are endless.

I grew up in a 3 bed council semi with great gardens, (which I maintained from 12 after dad left) driveway and garage.
It was a bit messy but not dirty.
It fell into disrepair due to being bought right before council upgraded all their properties (windows. Soffit. Roofing).🙄
Unable to afford to maintain it. Leaking roof, no electrics upstairs due to water. Insurance would not sort.
Windows with frost inside, rotting wood frames.
Kitchen sink full of dishes or sink blocked with food. So when I drained it left a filthy tide mark.holes in the carpets. Oven door had to be held on and we used a twin tub in the 80s.
But I was the happiest I've ever been with my family ❤️ always something going on!
Now, our house is detached and very nice. It's clean, in excellent repair and I'm very lucky. We have a dishwasher so no yukky sinks. Great granite tiled kitchen, planks downstairs and great carpet upstairs. I still love gardening here and do it all.
I may be the last generation to see an improvement on my home standards after leaving home.
Unless my daughter's rich great auntie leaves her any money.

@rainbowthoughts it was horses with us too. Multiple Ponies actually. Mum's precious little ponies got new rugs and the best of feeds while DSis and I were expected to sellotape the sole of our shoes back on and eat a bowl of microwaved sweetcorn and peas for dinner.
I vowed I would never put an animal's comfort before my children's needs.

Largely clean and tidy, but largely because of us kids.

As we moved out, one by one, we all slowly realised that our parents were pretty habituated to not doing much housework. Then they bought a second home to split their lives between reducing the cleaning time still further.

I don't mind too much though; we had four kids to split the chores between and it gave me a good foundation of cleaning habits.

I grew up in an untidy/ slightly dirty house and I’m untidy but clean. There’s always stuff out but this is my DD’s home too and my husband is untidy, he won’t take his cup to the kitchen etc. It is clean though. The floors get hoovered, there’s no food waste left out, the kitchen worktops get cleaned and when I do tidy and surfaces are clear they get a wet wipe over.

One of my siblings is a clean freak and the other could be on How Clean is Your House so I’m somewhere in the middle

Incredibly tidy. My dad was a tidy person by nature but being in the navy made him more insistent on it. I am also quite a tidy person but I also have 3 kids, a dog, a cat, an untidy husband and a job. So mostly I'm swimming against the tide. I try and keep things pretty clean and tidy because my mental health takes a nosedive if I don't.

My main childhood home (moved quite a lot) from age 4 to 9 was beautiful. In fact if I wasn't so happy in my house I would buy it. My dad was never very keen on cleaning (still isn't) so my mam must have managed to keep it clean herself, it wasn't ridiculously so though.
I just always remember feeling so happy in the big garden and having all the kids from the street in. My kids have that now as well.

My husband was brought up in a filthy house. His mother was a stay at home mother into her sons 20s but didn't seem to actually do any cleaning or cooking. He still would be fine with a dirty house but I certainly wouldn't .

I grew up in a large, but minimalist house. Moved out to a flat as I couldn't afford a house, but the minimalism remains. Mess and clutter is stressful for me.

Clean and tidy and mine is the same.

Cold, old and dirty, unless I cleaned. My flat is warm and comfortable. My parents houses are both filthy because they don't clean or tidy unless they absolutely have to.

@Eyevorbig0ne

I grew up in a 3 bed council semi with great gardens, (which I maintained from 12 after dad left) driveway and garage. It was a bit messy but not dirty. It fell into disrepair due to being bought right before council upgraded all their properties (windows. Soffit. Roofing).🙄 Unable to afford to maintain it. Leaking roof, no electrics upstairs due to water. Insurance would not sort. Windows with frost inside, rotting wood frames. Kitchen sink full of dishes or sink blocked with food. So when I drained it left a filthy tide mark.holes in the carpets. Oven door had to be held on and we used a twin tub in the 80s. But I was the happiest I've ever been with my family ❤️ always something going on! Now, our house is detached and very nice. It's clean, in excellent repair and I'm very lucky. We have a dishwasher so no yukky sinks. Great granite tiled kitchen, planks downstairs and great carpet upstairs. I still love gardening here and do it all. I may be the last generation to see an improvement on my home standards after leaving home. Unless my daughter's rich great auntie leaves her any money.

My parents leave dirty dishes piled high in their sink and it really grosses me out so my sink is always empty and bleached. If my mum ever comes over for a coffee, she'll put her mug in the sink when she's done and I always ask her not to. I put it straight in the dishwasher.

Super tidy & clean. My mother and father contributed equally, they both cooked (actually my dad is an amazing cook), they both cleaned, etc; so this is exactly what I expected in a man too.

Ours was clean and reasonably tidy on the surface but every drawer and pot was full of stuff. It was a warm and comfortable house. Lots of books and pictures.