To ask you how you sorted out your messy house?

[Queenofcarrotflour]

Looking for some guidance here on what feels like a huge task!

Have you ever had to sort out pretty much every room in your house following e.g. a house move, renovation work, long period of illness etc - with little time and small kids?

We made some big changes in our home, restructuring the layout (lots of DIY!). We then had some illness in the family, which means we got behind with housework for a week or two.

The result is that everything is everywhere - and we also have a housework backlog - and limited time each day to sort it all out

How would you approach decluttering, sorting and tidying the following pretty much the entire place?

The rooms are:

Kitchen
Adult bedroom
Kids bedroom
Living room.

Thankfully, the bathroom is fine!

I would love to hear your strategies!

Declutter then tidy and then clean! Do one room at a time. Be ruthless when decluttering

Moving about 15 times in 10 years helped us 😚But I'd see if you can fully empty a whole room at a time, preferably get it all outside if you can, and lay it out. Clean the whole room, then go through all the stuff and only put back what you genuinely need.

One room at a time. When my house was at its worst I followed the Flylady mantra of “ you can do anything for 15 minutes” and set a timer. Once or twice a day ( or more depending on how much time you have for this!)

it made it seem manageable and Ingot over feeling as if I needed a to spend whole weekends on it.

i had to do my son’s room last week to prep for decorating and got rid of 4 bin liners of tat.

Take bin liner roll, cloth and surface cleaner into one room at a time.

Ruthlessly chuck unwanted stuff (straight into bin liner), clean surfaces as you go and then tidy stuff away.

The a proper hoover and clean.

I also like a basket to pop things in that belong in another room.

We've recently renovated, have storage boxes in 1 room and work tools in another. The garage isn't finished yet, so somethings can't be moved out of the house as yet.
I'd like tips too! I tackle 1 room at a time and take in 3 boxes/bin bags. 1 for rubbish, 1 for charity shop/freecyle/olio and the 3rd to keep. That being said, we still have things being stored and seem to have endless clothes, in various sizes! When I think I've cleared a suitcase full- I find another!

Ruthless decluttering

Visited my sister recently. They had stuff everywhere. It's far easier to clean empty surfaces

Agree with previous people. Remove everything from the room. Literally as though you're moving out. You can pack it all into boxes/bags or if you've got a big enough space somewhere lay it all out in another room or the garden on the floor.

Clean the whole room top to bottom now that it's empty.

Return things back into the room, but be ruthless and only return the things you genuinely need. It's easier if it's all laid out, but you can do it box by box or bag by bag depending on how much space you have available.

Get rid of everything left over. Try to not focus on 'lost' money etc. Your happiness is worth more.

Do one small area daily. The most difficult thing is to start throwing things away but once you filled a couple of bin bags, you sort of go through "fuck it" moment and parting with clutter becomes fun.
Personally, I always start with clothes. I get everything out of wardrobes and drawers. I ask myself - does it fit, do I like it, has it been warn in the last two years, is it vintage. If I like it, but it doesn't fit, then it goes into donation pile. If it fits and it's vintage but hasn't been warn for two years, I tend to keep it for the most part.
Then move on to books, toys, sentimentals etc.
8 house moves in 10 years and I can pretty much fit all my possessions into a boot of a car.

If it’s within your means, get a skip. It takes the hassle out of decluttering. You can just throw everything away easily and without any excuses.

Also, I would leave nicer things outside of it for people to take.

Okay thank you this is all really helpful. Most rooms don't need a clean apart from the kitchen as we cleaned, redecorated and started moving items to new rooms. I see now we should have done more decluttering BEFORE moving stuff as now it's a combo of unpacking and decluttering.

I will try just focusing on one room at a time, in a bit of an order of tasks. Probably should start with the kitchen as it's the one that needs cleaning. I like the idea of setting a timer - hopefully that will focus the mind! I could probably get a fair bit done in 15 mins intervals before work/lunch/after work (on days I'm WFH).

This is really interesting keep it coming!

I did a massive declutter last year, so I could get the house decorated. It was years since it was done before that, and there was a lot to get rid of. I found that starting with cupboards was a good way to do it. In my case I cleared a sideboard and moved it to the hallway, which freed up the space where it had been and gave me a sideboard's worth of space for when I cleared another cupboard. I moved around downstairs doing that - making space in cupboards for the 'stuff' that made the cut, and ruthlessly binning or donating the rest.

Upstairs was similar. I cleared the linen cupboard of kids' duvet covers (mine are adults) old towels and so on, and created space for some of the clutter. Wardrobes were difficult, as I hate throwing out clothes, but I persevered, and made sure that there was enough space to house everything - nothing on spare beds or draped on chairs. They need doing again, really - I guess it will be necessary every six months or so - but it is great to know that it's possible to tidy up, as there is somewhere to put things that were previously lying about.

Repeat post, sorry.

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If you struggle being ruthless enough, find a close friend or relative who can hold you to account. I’ve done this for a sibling and it really helped (my ruthlessness balanced their hoarding tendencies) but both parties had to agree and I wasn’t as ruthless as I could have been!

Not the most eco solution, but don’t bother keeping boxes or bags “to donate” unless you’re physically going to get in the car and have take it down that day. If you know at the end of the day you can’t be bothered, just chuck it away.

We pay a decluttering goddess to come and spend 3 hours with us once a month. While she is here we are all working at decluttering and she manages the process, helps us cope with the "too difficult" stuff and helps us work out whether we reall need things (no keeping this obsolete cable in case it's 1998 again)

The house isn't perfect but each time she comes we focus on one or two rooms so each room gets done sooner or later and it doesn't get too awful in between. It's so much better than the clutter-filled mess we used to live in.

Lots of boxes for temporary storage. When you're sorting through things you keep finding stuff that needs to go in a different room, or doesn't really have a place to go right now. Give those things a temporary box while you're thinking about it then come back to that box when you're finished the main sort. You might find that you own five shoe horns when you barely need one, but if you keep storing them separately in different rooms you'll never notice. If they end up together in the box of things that have no place you will notice and either get rid of some or decide that that's enough to warrant their own specific storage place.

I did a big declutter before putting my last house on the market (and further decluttered as I packed) being methodical was the key for me.

I wrote a list of jobs per room, and did a room at a time, I always start to the right of the door and work around clockwise. As others have said with a bin bag and a cloth and cleaning spray, plus the vacuum cleaner to hand.

It's good to recycle but you need to do charity shop donations as you go along, or at least put them in the car, same with tip runs.

Repatriating things to their correct place needs to be done as you go along so you don't just create piles for sorting later.

A place for everything I find is key to maintaining tidiness otherwise things just get put the nearest cupboard or drawer out of sight.

If the kitchen is your main concern and time is an issue then consider getting a cleaner in to do a one off deep clean once you've decluttered, booking things like that in gives you a deadline and I find helps with motivation.

I followed Marie Kondo's method and sorted by category rather than room. The Kondo method is about keeping what brings you joy, but whether you follow that or a more standard decluttering approach, the principle of needing to remove a lot of stuff remains the same. It's absolutely worth it by the time you get to the end and you have a place for everything and everything in its place.

I think that with little kids, it's a marathon, not a sprint. I love the idea of emptying a room or do a whole category Kondo - style, but I just didn't have the time with small kids. I'd get everything out, then get interrupted, and then there's stuff everywhere and you never get back to it.

I just made a habit of making sure that did dmsll declutterings daily, even if it's just one or two things.

You can now order a collection online, so it has become quite easy to schedule a date and put bags outside for charity to collect. No need to throw things away out of convenience.

Definitely start with the kitchen as that’s the room you need to be functional.

I find it overwhelming looking at the whole room, so now I always start in the corner opposite the door and then work my way around clockwise.

On the first pass around I chuck obvious rubbish, remove things that should go to another room, pile up things for the charity shop.

Anything that’s in the right room but wrong place, move it to the right place straightaway even if that area’s not sorted yet.

Once you’ve done the first pass around the whole room, you go again and this time sort and clean each section as you go.

Start small. Anything you pick up from the floor goes in the bin

Start small. Anything you pick up from the floor that is either broken or grown out of goes in the bin

Start small. Anything you pick up from the floor that is either broken or grown out of goes in the bin