to think that you can either have a clean, tidy and uncluttered house OR happy children but not both?

[GreenTeapot]

Or can you manage both? How do you do it?

STOP!
Who are you tidying FOR?

If it is for the DC...they don't care
If it is for visitors/acquaintances...they need to attend to their own onions, not judge yours
if it is for DM or DMIL... perhaps they could help you out if it matters to them
If it iis for you...you would prioritise...you obviously have better things to do...

I think that those of us with less-than-show-homes are doing a favour to those of you with perfect pads. We are allowing you to feel smug!

I don't feel smug that my house is tidy and other people's aren't. I don't really care about other people's houses. I just want my own to feel nice

A lot of it's personality and habit, isn't it?

I arrive at my mum's house, I hang my coat and bag up in the cupboard and put my shoes on the mat.

My mum arrives at my house, she drapes her coat over my sofa, puts her bag on the dining room table, and leaves her shoes somewhere between the two.

My house is neater than my mum's house...

What does tidy mean?

To me:
Clothes, clean and away
House clean
Everything away....once finished with.

This house is much much happier when it's clean and tidy.

Cleaning and tidying is just a necessary part of life, like brushing your hair or cutting your toenails. It needs doing so it gets done, but I certainly don't feel smug about it and I'm pretty sure DH doesn't either!

I loved you anyway Norks, you know that, but you've just elevated yourself to a glistening cloud somewhere in heaven with that post

Ditto Grendel!

mrsravelstein - I am attempting to ignore your husband's shoes but if you could perhaps mention that there is a man on the internet who is quite concerned about them near your furnishings and gently insist ask that he remove them I would be ever so grateful.

madwoman - all I have said is absolutely true and I do actually enjoy cleaning/tidying although I have been holding back certain aspects of our lifestyle so as not appear eccentric.

SlackSally - it is not physically possible for anything to be spilt on a cream carpet or white wall in our house. I strictly control the location in which food and drinks is produced, served and consumed. There are no other fluids apart from cleaning materials and white paint in our house.

Norks i tidy up for me, if i lived in a shit tip i would be depressed. My 3 bedroomed council house is as far from show home as you can get. Doesnt mean i want to live in a messy dirty house though

BsshBossh thanks for tips - currently just have a 'to be filed' tray for long term stuff like bank accounts, pension etc (filing cabinet is 2 floors upstairs) and then there's all the current stuff inc school paperwork. Am determined to sort it out as it drives me nuts!

OP - a house def needs to have the ability to get untidy to have happy children - otherwise when do they get to build camps, create dens, set up a school, jedi-training centre..... but it's still nice to walk into a tidy house, and I'm much less stressed if everyone can just find their own stuff rather than me being grumpy because I haven't got round to it yet I have to dry the PE kit on th eradiator again. Work in progress :o

I was much messier when the kids were tiny, i didn't realise at the time but have gradually got more organised as we have all got older. When i look at old film of birthdays and so on, it all looks a mess but we were all very happy.

I hate looking for things more than I hate cleaning. So that makes it worth decluttering and tidying. There is a lot less work in cleaning a room which is perpetually tidy because things are put back where they belong. Our kids will tidy when I am going to hoover, and they are good with putting washing in the baskets and putting clean stuff away. They also clear the table and load the dishwasher...(in fact I'm wondering what I do!)

So I make sure that there is always more stuff leaving the house than coming in.

Flylady is great, too for anyone who struggles in chaos.

morebeta, i have trained all 3dc to take their shoes off and put them on the shoerack, but i didn't get DH til he was 36 so the training is taking a bit longer... he believes that not wearing shoes, even when relaxing in your own house, is dangerously liberal and bohemian.

Grendelsmum - I remember an entire thread about putting bags on dining room tables. People seemed to think it was just the epitomy of slack slatternish rank behaviour.

It scared me because it had never occurred to me not to do it it was a bolt out of the blue, this faux pas I had been making for more than 30 years.

The thing is, it is your choice.
You can choose to have a gorgeous show home, I am jealous if you have one, I have never managed it.
Or you can choose to spend the time making sandcastles in the dining room, making crispie cakes in the kitchen and finger painting in the sitting room.

It is your choice and your home. Nobody else's business

Or... you can have a clean tidy home and make crispie cakes and do finger painting. Sandcastles can stay in the sandpit though!

Disclaimer: I do not have a show home. Clean and tidy yes but the furniture is too mismatched to be a 'show home' and there is a pillar in the kitchen which I allow DD to scribble on with crayon, on the basis she knows not to scribble anywhere else in the house...

crazycatlady I think you are on my wavelength.
Yes, keep it tidy enough for you, but with a child-friendly element. I love the crayoning column...can I come and play? I am 5'4", so can reach a tiny bit higher than DCs

oh god. i need a link to the bags on dining table thread... please tell me it's in classics?

but norks-it is also possible to do all that and have a clean and tidy house!

I dont get this why people who think people who have tidy houses do nothing with their kids. I made 7 balls of play-doh yesterday which has been played with 2 nights in a row. I washed the pots and tidied the flour and mess away The kids also painted their sports day placards. Then i tidied the stuff away when they went to bed.

Anytime . It was DH that started the crayon column. He was measuring DD's height when she was just a year old and marked it with the date and then DD got in on the act... since then it's been filled in with more height marks and dates and lots of scribble!

It is so cute I plan to leave it when we repaint the kitchen in a few weeks.

I love having evidence of children living in the house. I just need it to stay in some sort of order! You're right though, it's nobody else's business.

cheesesarnie how do you do that, then?
Please tell me your secret. What do you NOT do, that gives you the time to do both?

I have two jobs and teenage DC, my house is still not immaculate. I never watch TV, tell me the secret

Oi, crazycat that was me! Who is this anytime bint?

Oh sorry norks I meant you can come and play anytime! Tiredness (from all the tidying ) is setting in!

It's less effort all round to be tidy I am sure, I often will do a load of laundry put it down, forget about it be it dry or wet, come back find a cat sat on it and then have to do the whole lot again, or rewash it if it's been left on the line and it's rained. Laundry is the bain of my life not toys, just hard work.
One day I'll get every piece of clothing into it's draw and then I'll die happy, knowing it happened once.

I bet lots of those claiming to have a clean and tidy house secretly have a mess room, or a utility room from hell, or a cupboard of doom?

I have a laundry room which is rapidly being turned into a dumping ground by DH... not for much longer though, I am about to convert it into a den and playroom so DH's crap will have to find new homes