Cannot keep on top of the house. Help!

[carriespromdress]

Will try to be as brief as I can.

We moved into a doer-upper 6 years ago. Paid a lot of money for it and it’s still nowhere near how I envisaged.

We have a pre teen and a toddler and two dogs. Both work and there just never seems to be enough time to get anything meaningful done renovation wise. I’ve made peace with this. But I’m really struggling with the basics and it’s getting me down.

Id say it is surface level clean. Bathroom and kitchens wiped down daily, hoover throughout daily and try to dedicate at least a few solid hours per week to mopping floors, deep cleaning bathroom etc. But there are some areas I just never touch and makes everything feel so grubby. Doors are covered in handprints and mud from dogs (I do wipe them down but it’s as bad again the next day). Skirting boards, dusting, inside windows, I could go on.

Also have a big problem with general clutter and also things I just don’t keep on top of getting rid of such as toys and clothes the kids have grown out of. I know decluttering would be the first logical step but it just feels like such an overwhelming task.

I really want a welcoming, clean home. I watch cleaning videos on Tik Tok and actually find them motivating but it all just feels so impossible in this house. It’s old, cold, cobwebby and has issues with mould. (Looking into new windows in the new year but just cleaning and using a dehumidifier at the moment). I’ve totally fallen out of love with the house and don’t enjoy being here. But I know I’m half the problem because I just need to crack on and make a start!

Any motivational help or tips would be appreciated.

Oh OP you sound so stressed, but it’s clear you have entered the “hamster wheel” , where you feel like you cannot win.
An uncluttered home is easiest to clean & maintain.
perhsps take 30 minutes per day (sack off the hoovering one day to get started?) with the biggest laundry basket you have. Take it to the least cluttered room. Anything on the floor, general life debris, post/paperwork, without a “home” goes in the basket.

Dedicate a place for:
paperwork/life admin (like a real life inbox)
Toys
Ornaments/trinkets you don’t need or love. (Charity shop bag is next here)
Doors & skirting boards- can your ore-teen help here & earn rewards maybe?
Repeat the basket throughout the house, with each room. Assign the basket contents to your new “homes” for everything.
Once you have removed the clutter, general dusting/hoovering etc is easier to maintain.
Daily binning of recycling etc really helps too.

Other things:

-Hallway is the biggest & first route to a welcoming home. Get storage for shoes, scooters, sports kit & equipment, rack for coats. If there’s space a console table with a dish for keys/fobs and maybe a plant &/or diffuser…soft lamp.

Have baskets for the stairs & encourage this as a routine. Nobody goes upstairs empty handed

Kitchen: is there a system in place for washing up/putting away? Do all know where groceries & crockery live? Are your surfaces easy to clean down? Do you need a the appliances on show now?

Back up stock of cleaning products, toilet/kitchen roll, clean towels etc both upstairs & downstairs really helps keep
order in little 5 minute bursts

Laundry, you have a toddler and a pre teen-don’t sweat the small stuff & use an evening or weekend morning to get all clean laundry put away for the following week.

Sunday blitz- a mini review of all the above so you can enter each week with a clear head.

lastly-all the above is not just your job. Ask for help and figure out who has favourite tasks, maybe pre teen could fold lsundry, your DH could hoover or something?

Watching for when I get over the flu

Get yourself listening to the slob comes clean podcast. Whilst you declutter. First step ‘the easy stuff- take out the trash’ 1 black bin bag, put stuff in it. When it’s full tie it up and that’s done.
then do 15 mins putting things away.
ask yourself’where would I look for this?’ Then put it there.

doing this every day will make a difference.

plus less stuff means less to organise and clean.

Prevention is better than cure!

So, decluttering and creating a home for everything as pps have said.

No dirty hands = no dirty handprints. Kids sit and eat at the table, baby wipe the toddler's hands and send the preteen straight to the sink to wash afterwards, before they touch anything else. Same for any messy play. No food consumed anywhere else in the house. Muddy dogs stay on their mat/bed in the kitchen until they're dry.

Robot vac and mop.

Is it just you spending hours of your weekend deep cleaning the bathroom and worrying about getting on top of this? What is your husband doing?

Right....sod podcasts about cleaning, you don't need 'a method' dreamed up by an influencer to make themselves money etc. It is all just allowing your brain to procrastinate further.
Even this thread is something you are using to put off doing something about it (can't start cleaning until you've read through the responses 😉).

My advice would be start....now......do something! Bin bag old toys and clothes and put them straight in the boot of the car ready to go to the tip.
If you notice something, deal with it! There and then....don't walk past it thinking you'll do it later, you won't!

Dedicate an hour or two on a Saturday just for dealing with the renovation of the house. These hours are sacrosanct and cannot be 'swapped' to do something else....you are busy at that time and nothing but a medical emergency can encroach on those few hours.

Do bits every day and it will soon get done.

Pay for a deep clean of the house. Before you do, do a thorough declutter and have a space for everything. That’s only way to reset.

Do you really need to hoover throughout daily? My kids have left home now but we never did this. I guess we didn’t have pets.

anyway, why not do one of the suggestions others have made on this thread and come back and report. Even if it is one tiny task, come and tell us about it! Small goals are the motivator.

Dh and renovated with a young toddler. The best thing you can do is divide and conquer. For us that meant one adult was responsible for the children and food for the entire day which was always a Saturday, Sunday was a more relaxed day. That person doing the DIY or housework or whatever cracked on uninterrupted. The other parent did as much as they could around the children.

We did this for 2 weekends in a row then a whole weekend of no reno for a break just housework. Your preteen can easily do chores like unpack a dishwasher, take bins out, do some laundry, I took a photo of the washing machine set to the correct setting and shared it with the family so everyone knew how to do this.

Also some things take far less time than you think they do. I just stick either music or a podcast on and get as much done as possible. Little by little you can clear stuff. Everything needs to have a place to live so if you keep coming cross piles of stuff and you don't know where to put it solve that issue. We banked an entire wall with storage for the children's crap toys, games, shoes, coats etc. Just Ikea Pax wardrobes but brilliant to hide everything in.

Tidy over clean!

When I get overwhelmed, I have to break it down, I’m just going to put 5 things away. Or set a timer for 5-10 minutes and just tidy. I am one of those types who could spend 30 minutes moving things around… so have to work hard to stay on task… if I’m tidying downstairs I have a basket on the stair for all upstairs things else I’ll just wander round doing a job here and there! I also can work quite well doing a I’ll just do x whilst I make a coffee…

My main suggestion would be to make sure you are not the only one actually doing the cleaning. Older child can declutter their own stuff. I found kids to be generally ruthless with their possessions so they will do a better job at it than you who assigns sentimental meaning to the old toys/drawings/clothes. What's the hubby doing? Does he have any jobs he is responsible for?
And yes, I would ditch the two hours of deep clean and focus on decluttering instead.

Dh does have his jobs too, mainly dealing with the dogs, doing the garden and outside jobs and he does help around the house. But I do think his standards regarding deep cleans are a bit different to mine.

We hoover daily mainly because of the muck and hair the dogs bring in. Love them dearly but they do create a lot of the mess. And yeah we just have too much stuff. I’m going to make a start tomorrow and hopefully do a bit more over the weekend. Need to start somewhere.

I've found this helps too. Some days even 5 minutes (once you start it usually turns into more) with no pressure on yourself to actually finish or achieve a certain goal.

Get a cleaner?

Book a colle

I feel for you, though you do have a lot on your plate, so I feel what your soul aches for is difficult in your circumstances.

i know my house suddenly became manageable again when my only daughter left home. There was suddenly, so much less stuff.

Im going to suggest you develop little spots and vistas that feed this need in you for calm and beauty. In a place where you spend more time, perhaps in bed or watching t.v. Create an oasis of calm within your sight lines only. Forget everything else and just push it out of sight.
Keep these small spaces free of cutter, clean and filled with beautiful things, so your eyes have something lovely to rest on during your day. I think this is a good time to say, put a beautiful vase of flowers down, somewhere that you see many times a day.

The advice for declutterring etc is brilliant, but this is to help you out until you get there. It will also remind you what sort of space you are travelling towards.

Sorry, pressed post before I finished!

Book a collection with Anglo Doorstep Collections. There’s a list on their website of what they accept, but it’s pretty much anything you’d take to a charity shop. They then come & collect it at an agreed time.

Cleaning a knackered house is soul destroying. Freshly decorated rooms with new carpets and windows and suck like are a dream to clean.

So first off, thays part of the problem.

Can you get one room finished? It'll feel so much better to have a room that you can shut yourself into and feel peaceful!

As for clutter, look, it's got to go. Its weighing you down. Just. Get. Rid. Cleaning when theres clutter is similarly sould destroying. Bag it up and take it to the charity shop or tip. This weekend.

These are my top tips. Then it's a case of having a bit of a routine. And sticking to it. Teach the kids tidyness. Always put dry clothes away immediately. Don't leave things lying around. These 2 things go a really long way to feeling on top of stuff.

Regarding the clutter of toys, get on Facebook and on to a local group, take photos and post them there saying they are free for collection only. People will snap them up for themselves or church playgroups, nurseries etc. That will get rid of loads in the run up to xmas.

Also ask your primary school, they may take some stuff if its in good condition, ive donated lots of games like chess, connect 4 etc to the after school club. The nursery took the little wooden shape puzzle things that DD out grew. Also it's a great place to donate to because you go there every day.

Clothes, just bundle them up in bin liners and put them in the car and drop them off to local charity shop.

Stop holding on to things that are no longer used or useful.

You will feel like a weight has been lifted off you.

Also, when I feel like its getting a bit too much in my house, I set a 10 minute timer and do something i know needs doing. Like DDs wardrobe really did need a good clear out so I set 10 minutes and cracked on. 10 minutes later, the stained bits were in the bin, the too small bits are bagged up in the car, ready to go to the charity shop.

Now ive got something for the charity shop already in the car, I'll do another round up of bits for the charity shop like DS's wardrobe or my own over the next couple of days and off load it all at once.

As for things like the doors being mucky, again, a 10 minute timer, damp cloth, spray bottle and off you go.

I sometimes think going round the house with 1 cleaning product is less overwhelming than carrying loads of products around the house. For example, cleaning the mirrors, I'll do the whole lot in 1 go rather than going into 1 room and doing all the individual tasks for that room before moving on to the next room. I find it easier for me as my house is quite small.

This is what I would do. Both have a couple of days off and blitz. Do a plan before so you know what you’ll need re baskets/storage/products. Assume you have hard floors? These are double work as hoover then mop so get a wet/dry vacuum. Much easier as just wet vac everything up. If practical get a robot hoover, they are great if you have clear floors.

Once you’ve reset get a plan in place that involves everyone to keep it ticking over. It is relentless though OP, I feel your pain.

One thing that's helped me when I'm overwhelmed was the trick of every time you have a box or bag to walk around filling it up with things for the charity shop or to sell. It's not overwhelming but you clear stuff surprisingly quickly

I am reading this thread as someone who struggles to keep up with everything in the house and this really spoke to me. I spend far too long reading about how to organise and clean and no time doing it. I feel inspired to get something done this weekend - thank you

Hose and towel the dogs down/ wipe their paws outside before they come in from their walk. If they’re in and out all day and getting constantly muddy, just contain them within one hard floored bit of the house. You’re never going to have a clean home if you let muddy animals walk through it all day, however much you clean. Honestly I’ve learned the hard way that the easiest way to have a tidy/ clean house is not to let it get messed up in the first place. Obviously you need to live your life and it’s not a show home but a few simple rules ( no dogs upstairs/ no food or sticky drinks upstairs) can cut down unnecessary mess by like 80%

I seriously empathise. We moved from a lovely newbuild flat to a doer upper 3 years ago and it has slowly sucked the life out of me. It's so hard to make your life ordered and tidy and homely when so much stuff needs to be done to the actual house.
The motivation to tidy and clean and organise is really affected when the house just looks crap anyway. I wish someone had properly sat me down before we bought this house and explained the time that would be taken away from our family by buying a doer upper house.
I don't have any advice, just understanding, my house is a total mess, probably far worse than yours as it sounds like you're keeping on top of a cleaning routine, which I am definitely not!

This is exactly how I feel. Thank you.

If I could go back in time I would seriously reconsider buying this house. It has great potential but we are not the right people to do it! We just don’t have the time or resources. And yes it really affects motivation to clean and keep it nice when it looks shit anyway. Dh and I aren’t very good at DIY and there are half finished projects all over the place. But that’s all a bit beyond us right now so before anything else I really need to focus on decluttering and cleaning. Room by room is probably the way to go.