To be fascinated by tidy people

[tangerinemagic]

I’m just not tidy. Nor is my husband. We try. Actually very hard. We have two young children and a dog but there is literally stuff everywhere, all of the time.

I live in London, so we naturally have many parent friends right on our doorstep and there is a ‘drop in’ culture where we might wrap up a playground or common trip and head to each others houses.

Ours is not fit for that kind of spontaneity but others fling open their doors at any time and it’s like no one even lives there.

when conversations come up about chores, cleaning, tidiness, I recoil. They really are extremely tidy people and with young kids. You can’t mistake walking into a tidy persons house, it just feels, different.

The floors and sofa/furniture in our house just don’t look like theirs, even if you have a whip round and tidy you can tell.

So, tidy people, tell me, how do you do it. What are the tips. Was this nurture growing up in a tidy household? Or something you learned? AIBU to be ashamed my pram, car, house is always in need of a clean.

@Imbrocator

From what I observe it seems like naturally tidy people either have houses which have a lot of space (and therefore a lot of room for storage), or very few belongings.

Not really. More important is having the right kind of storage solution for what little space you have. (And of course limiting yourself to how much stuff you buy - that doesn't mean doing without, it means decluttering and not keeping the stuff you'll never need/use again!). We've a couple of cupboards (one floor to ceiling and the other under the stairs) which OH fitted out with all kinds of shelves, hooks, etc. - not a square foot of wasted space and it's amazing how much you can fit in them. We're in them daily - nothing is in them that isn't used on a regular basis. We have a single wardrobe each and a single chest of drawers each for our clothes - that's not excessive and we have plenty of things to wear all year round - it's a good balance. When they start to look full, we have a clear out to the charity shop.

I used to be very messy, mess would just seem to appear and I'd have no idea how to keep it under control. It took years of training myself for my house to look reasonably tidy. It's not showhome perfect by any means but I could invite people back on most days and not be worried.

I got myself in to a routine of fully tidying/cleaning the kitchen before taking the kids to school, I found the kitchen was the biggest issue so once that's clean and tidy the rest doesn't seem so daunting, also because it's done every single morning it never gets too messy or dirty. I do have a dishwasher though which makes so much difference. I have certain surfaces that I refuse to put anything down on so they stay clear all the time. The dining table does get cluttered so I try and clear it every few days. I did get rid of lots of "stuff" when we moved house a few years ago and that helped massively.

Lots of previous posters have reiterated the “everything having a place it belongs” advice but the reality is that sometimes you end up in a situation where you’re living somewhere very small, and a normal number of belongings won’t fit there. A small flat is fine for one person with modest belongings - add in a second or third person with a similar quantity and suddenly you’re a messy person despite your best efforts.

This is us imbrocator. Every piece of furniture is chosen with storage in mind.

We have boxes (functional sturdy ones to stack for bedrooms and pretty ones to go on top of things for other rooms). Almost every flat surface has a layer of boxes on it. Some windowsills and shelves are used for display of ornaments instead. The shelves are screwed to the wall, we did it ourselves and they can be removed, the holes filled in and painted over if we leave.

There's cube units and chests of drawers everywhere. These work better than large furniture when you're renting because you don't know the size and layout of the next place so larger furniture can be difficult to fit in. All furniture doubles as storage. The lid on the footstool/seat comes off and blankets go inside. The toy box is wooden and doubles as a seat in the bedroom. There's a day bed with a ton of cushions instead of a sofa, with drawers underneath to store all the bedding for the beds. The beds have boxes of out of season clothes stored underneath. Tables have a shelf underneath or drawers instead of legs.

Over-the-door hooks store coats and bags on hollow doors where proper hooks can't be installed, they're also easy to pack up on moving day. There's a shoe rack that goes halfway up the wall in the entrance. In the kitchen everything that doesn't go in a cupboard is hung on a wall. From the steps, broom and collapsible bucket, to the shopping bags, cups and saucepans. The cupboards are for food, plates, medicine and cleaning supplies.

We are not a minimalist household but everything is clean and tidy. Name almost any category of stuff and you'll find it lives in a box or drawer somewhere. The furniture is easy to clean between/behind so there's not a build up of dust or mouldy walls developing unnoticed. There's actually no damp problems here so no mouldy walls full stop, but sometimes we find we need to move furniture around from where we originally planned to put it, so a particular area has more airflow or can be more easily and frequently cleaned, if there's a damp problem with the property. This is easy to do with the type of furniture we have.

Tricky one. Our home is tiny by house and it’s just enough space for us. We like it that way. We are very minimal and ruthless with our belongings. We don’t want for more and even if we lived in a bigger house we wouldn’t want more things to fill it. There are elements of well-chosen storage, but honestly I’d rather life clutter free than have the stress of how to organise too many things. We absolutely do own sentimental items and “unnecessary” things. Just not too many.

@LoudPlumDog I shared pics of my home on my AMA. My house is always tidy. I can’t let it get messy, I just don’t have it in me 🤣 here’s a few pics.
I’m still looking for a rug for the sitting room…I’m too fussy 😅

This just shows how tidiness can look so different to different people. I have a tiny home built in the early 1800s. Our decor is simple but traditional and fairly in keeping with the period. We have pictures on our walls and various things that we love on display.

But it’s still very minimal. Minimal and tidy rather than the more modern clean and sparse look. I think I would find the modern white style very unforgiving of the normal scruffiness and marks that occur with family life. That’s where I’m too lazy as I don’t like scrubbing and cleaning so owning as few things as possible and only what we truly need makes our home easy to clean and keep tidy.

@Kitchenbattle . I love your home, but to me that looks like a holiday let before my family have taken possession of it. 5 minutes later and it would look totally different 😂!

This doesn't even look like anyone lives there

4 of us live here 🤣🤣 I just tidy after everything 😅

🤣🤣 this made me laugh

@Dramatic @PassOnThat thank you for the laugh. I’ll take the comments as compliments 🙌🙌🙌

@Kitchenbattle . I once had coffee in a house like that. I had my toddler with me and it was an unnerving experience 😆.

Ah I love kids though, honestly I wouldn’t be bothered, everything is wipeable 🙌