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!

We are doing it this week, lots of sorting of books and toys. We've done 2 rooms and taken 10 bags to charity, luckily we have one of those metal bins outside a local school and it's been empty so we've loaded it up.

The key is to be pretty ruthless, if it's not been used in 6 months then it goes. If I think it might come into use then it possibly stays or goes to the attic. Attic stuff gets chucked after 12 months.

It can easier to put things in a 'not sure' pile than a 'get rid' pile when trying to work quickly and make hundreds of micro decisions about what to do with stuff.

I agree with not selling. The effort and time involved to recoup £3 on a plastic toy is not worth it. I Facebook marketplace a lot for free. I put the ad up, chuck it outside on the pavement and it's gone in an hour or so.

Stacey Dooley 'Sort Your Life Out' on iplayer is good, although how anyone has time/ space to empty a room in real life is beyond me.
We got rid of some stuff, eg found a bag of 20+ balls- just kept 3, gave the rest away.
Freecycle also good- people coming to take stuff away.
Charity shops- think of all the money made for motivation?

Everything onto the bed/ just outside the room, get the whole family to take ten things and put them where they should be neatly. Sometimes works, not always (kids disappear;))

I get a box and put in everything I want to remove from that room. Then make the room nice/clean.

Then slowly work through the box to recycle/donate/dispose.

This makes the room nice quickly and the sorting can be done gradually.