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!

Little and often is the key

Marie Kondo approach feels positive, as it's about keeping things you love

id take it a room at a time!! last weekend we pulled every single thing out of all the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen! all out of date food / spices / items we were never gonna use were thrown out!! got rid of a load of mugs / cups / plates / glasses - we had way too many!

then put everything back neatly and in a more organised way!

will tackle the bedroom this weekend - same way take absoutley everything out and get rid of loads of stuff ahead of putting back

Fly Lady. It’s absolutely brilliant.

I've started following declutterdollies on Instagram (Dilly from Sort Your Life Out) and she has an April challenge at the moment. Every day is a different area eg kitchen appliances, cutlery etc. you get all of the items you have in that category and put them all together so you can see exactly what you have and then declutter and organise what's left.

You also have to remove 1 thing from your house on the 1st day, 2 on the 2nd day etc for the whole month. So you get rid of bigger items at the start of the month, then smaller items towards the end.

I'm finding it really motivating. Maybe because I love the tv show Sort Your Life Out, I could really do with going on it myself but would be far too embarrassed!

That's a really good point about putting stuff aside to donate.

I can't count the number of times I've sorted stuff to donate and left it in a bag and, for example my husband has put it in the wash again thinking it was dirty clothes! So maybe I save 'clothes' sort for the day then food bank is open so I can just take them directly there. We always end up with piles of stuff 'to go' without the time or planning about actually getting rid of them!

The decluttering goddess or accountability buddy sounds good. My sister is amazing at organising and quite minimalist so she would definitely be good at deciding what could go. I need to be ruthless at this point as I want an easy home!

Invited friends to come visit 😂
They're arriving tonight and I've spent the last 8 days sorting 1 room at a time, doing a proper job of it and even deep cleaning things that haven't been done for a long time (I've probably still managed to miss things like the fridge that needs a clean, but I've run out of steam now but the whole place is so much more tidy and clean and I won't be embarrassed to have them staying with us now).
The difficulties come with maintaining the rooms you've already done whilst doing a new room each day, but the motivation of impending visitors always works for me, plus I spent today doing the last easiest room (guest room) and then re-tidied and cleaned the rest of the apartment, which was very quick due to having been done so recently anyway.
Do the hardest/most important rooms when the kids are at school so you have no distractions.

Set up some ikea bags in your hall. Label them dump, donate, sell. Go through each room one at a time then clean it and move on. Leave bedrooms to last.

make a list of stuff you have
make a list of where there is place to keep stuff
take a good amount of time out with family to decide upon where every individual item big or small should go
side note munkensmat is based lol throw away stuff you don't need

What I do is:

step 1:
In the morning as soon as I wake up, I get EVERYTHING out, and plonk it on the bed/kitchen counters. Just get everything out. Then you’re forcing yourself to sort it out, as you can’t use your kitchen or bed until you do!

step 2:
Clean the drawers/cupboards

step 3:
Only put away the things you went to keep and things which you use daily.

step 4:
You’ll discover a load of junk. Dump all the junk somewhere else as you go along - garage, garden, car. Wherever - just get it out of the house.

step 5:
Have a date in mind for the tip (or better yet, book a slot at the tip, as you’ll be committed then!) and charity shop. By this day, you must have finished sorting the house out. I’ve dumped all my junk in the garage and I’m going to the tip this Friday.

I’m currently halfway through doing the whole house before the new baby arrives in 5 weeks time! I have completed two children’s bedrooms, our bedroom, and the kitchen, so far. Living room, office and the dreaded garage are next.

Good luck to you!

Before and after pics?

Omg just read pp. Do not start making lists! This is the ultimate procrastination and time wasting activity.

Kitchen first so you can cook and then livingroom so you can relax.

Oh great option! I’ll look this up for my next clear out

Honestly, I’d send the children to the grandparents for a day if that’s possible, and tackle the whole thing in one go!

When we last moved I was 39 weeks pregnant with DD2, and DD1 was 2.5. We sent her for a sleepover with the ILs for the whole day, night and following morning of the move, and unpacked in one massive marathon on that long day. DH then took all boxes to the tip the next morning, while I cleaned everything, then collected DD1 to come back to a fully set up home. Good job too, as DD2 arrived four days later.

However, I appreciate that this relies on you having childcare like that as an option. Definitely saved us time and stress though.

It’s horses for courses. All ideas above are great and work for PP, but it depends what type of lifestyle you have currently and your character.

Emptying the whole room at once: motivating and exciting or overwhelming and scary?

Sorting by room/area or by category of item?

Slow and steady or a big blitz?

Go it alone to focus, get kids involved to teach them good habits, get a no-nonsense friend or relative involved for fun, or pay a professional to keep you from being too sentimental.

You know you, so to save stress do have a think what appeals / stresses you out and then go for it.

If there are lots of joint things to look at, make sure either DH is decluttering with you or that you have a clear method for remembering everything you want his agreement to Chuck out. Perhaps in a big box or post its?

I did this myself after living in the same place for 15 years and realising you are a hoarder!!

Book time off work if you work. I took a Thursday/Friday one week then Monday/Tuesday two weeks later so I had a week in between back in work to give me a rest (it is HARD WORK!) and effectively had 2x 4 days chunks with the weekends.

Tackle one room at a time. Start in one corner and literally gut it. Be ruthless. If you haven’t used it/touched it in over a year ask yourself if you actually need it. If the answer is no, the bin is the place for it!

I did do literally everything though, down to washing curtains, cleaning curtain poles and windows and every spot that exists. I did it in October and to be honest, it has mostly been a small surface clean needed since.

Good luck!

We got a storage unit, loads of boxes, and a hell of a lot of bin bags. Did a room at a time, being utterly ruthless with chucking out crap, stuff we want to keep went into labelled boxes and into storage then cleaned each room very thoroughly as we cleared it.

Took ages, we could only do a bit at a time for various reasons but while the place isn't exactly spotless yet it is very well uncluttered and easy to find the things we need. And I'm finding it much easier to keep tidy now.

Unfortunately the storage unit now needs the same treatment!

I’ve moved a lot so am a champion declutterer. I go room by room, fill bags with stuff for the charity shop and never leave the house empty handed during this period. I’m not interested in selling it myself I like to think of it as a charitable donation (though did once do a huge a very enjoyable car boot sale with the kids- we sold absolutely everything including the containers and bags we’d taken the stuff in. Price accordingly - don’t take anything home with you). You need to be brutal and unsentimental. I have never regretted throwing anything away. Stuff is just stuff - having a lovely calm, clear space to live in is much more important. Get the rooms back in shape one by one. Start with a corner or a cupboard and work your way round (getting rid of more stuff as you go if necessary). It’s good to get one room shipshape first as that will inspire you to do the others - for this reason it’s sometimes good to start with a small room so you feel you are making progress.

I keep a box by the door for stuff to go to charity. When it's almost full, it goes

Two main methods:

• little bit at a time, over the course of months
• Mad weekend where you try to do it all

For the first, the fifteen minute challenges or month long challenges where you do a cupboard at a time will work well. Plan for a big trip to the tip and charity shops at the end of the month, and have assigned places to put the stuff to go, ideally out of sight where no one can claim things back.

For the second, get everyone involved, assign places for stuff to donate, stuff to bin. Wack a good playlist on loud and get everyone in the house cracking on!

If you've got a loft/ garage/ shed etc, get the stuff from their pulled out, and only put stuff back that you actually want or need to keep or will use. If you've got a reliable partner or friend/relative who will help assign them an area too! If there's anything you're particular about then sort that yourself. If you have some spare cash, I'd consider starting the declutter yourself and hiring a cleaner for the cleaning bits.

If your kids are old enough, get them to sort their stuff out themselves (toys, books, clothes etc), if not, then aim to go through some of their stuff in the week leading up to the big weekend, ideally getting them involved a bit (you can pull out stuff that's too young for them like clothes which don't fit, toys they don't play with as they're too old now etc, but ideally let them choose stuff like which books and toys to keep). You can limit in terms of space, or in terms of number of items to keep, or not limit at all and just see how they do!

Marie kondo changed my life. Plus, don't keep stuff to sell just get rid. Otherwise you end up with a room full of stuff to sell and it's overwhelming.

I would find somewhere to store bits and basically empty each room - 1 at a time, scrub it and then put everything back. When you are putting stuff back you can decide if to bin keep or find a new home for it!

As well as ruthlessly decluttering, taking one room at a time and everything else everyone has said I would also say don't hesitate to dump stuff that's in the wrong room in to the right room even if its in the corner, you don't have to find a home for everything straight away. For example if your focusing on the living room but find a load of things that belong in the kitchen or bedrooms just dump those things in those rooms don't get distracted from the living room and then loop back to them later or the next day for 10 minutes to sort through.

Hire a skip then another then another until you're done. Start with the easiest and take it from there. We've just done pretty much the whole house after a disaster of an extension which ended up taking 8 years rather than the 10 weeks we were quoted.

It's an undertaking but soooo worth it when it's done.

I find that making decisions about what to do with items can be time consuming and stressful when trying to clean and tidy. I put v

Oops posted too soon!

I put everything that I'm not 100% certain that I want to keep to one side, and then I go through that stuff and make decisions at the end, once the room is clean and sorted with the essentials.