Efficient house-keeping, ie. can't be arsed but it needs doing.

[vastingavay]

Or.. keeping the shitwork to a minimum.

I want to spend as little time, energy and thought on running the house as possible.

I am a SAHM at present, but would love to hear from all on this subject.

ah i know all this really...I just need to DO it:)

I have found the only way is to go off into a trance/daydream where i am stood in my beautiful huge farmhouse kitchen, with my beautiful angelic children, some cakes baking, a smell of fresh ironing wafting through the air

however, my sitting room currently smells of wee (DD) vomit (DS), there are crumbs all over the sofa, every toy is out, and i have DD whinging at me (again) DS asleep on me and a hob that needs a good scrub.

I fear the only answer is to not have children, spend no time on MN and have a cleaner...

Hi Alice :)

Yes, just having no children is not enough - I know

Flylady is pretty good, but I found it a little all-consuming, when I want to think about it less as well as do it less.

Plus the wearing the shoes in the house thing is .

Sufficient and appropriate storage seems pretty essential.

Does anyone have any storage tips and tricks to share?

Best tip I've read (on MN, of course) was to never leave a room without something - pick something up and put it away. In my home, with a very active and curious DS, 2.5 years old, this is very useful. Today I found the tin opener under the sofa and returned it to the kitchen (at which point I picked up a toy car and put it away in the car box, at which point....and so on).

One of my friends has a great laundry tip - she has a 3 or 4 drawer unit thingy, one drawer for each type of wash (say whites, colours, dark and delicate or however you do it): it's easy to keep track of your washing, no sock left behind etc. One drawer-full = one wash.

My best tip is to use plastic baskets inside drawers and cupboards all over the house, makes it easier to keep everything in it's place, plus you can get more in that way than when you are just just piling it on shelves. Esepcially good for high shelves/ cupboards as you can just lift the basket out to get things from the back.

Nah - you is doing it wrong! plus the fledglings take some of her rules with a very very very large pinch of salt they get ignored

We have trofast storage for toys. Means that ds can have a box out without having major chaos. Also helps with toy rotation. Plus when they grow out it is easily adaptable to new toy storage needs.

wasting what kind of stuff do you need to store? I have tons of storage inside all our wardrobes and cupboards.

My top tip is overdoor pockets for the insides of wardrobes - I have a full length one and it fits loads of shoes, and all my gloves, scarves, hats, belts, clutch bags etc plus a load of other bits and pieces. It frees up drawers for actual clothes then rather than heaps of stuff.

And we have Expedit for toys, it is brilliant.

I think the main problem is that we've lost a lot of room as we've moved and even though we've decluttered somewhat, the dining room is also the office, laundry room and main entrance way.

When we get the shed, there'll be more room in the pantry for some of the stuff that's in the dining room. It's like Tetris.

I've got a set of plastic drawers for DS toys in the front room, but it's actually placed in front of a bookcase. And it's overflowing anyway.

What I really want is purpose built bookshelves in the alcoves in the front room and as much Expedit as we can squeeze into the dining room.
But that will have to wait.

MILs suggestion is to get rid of the books.

Ooh no you can't get rid of books! That's heresy!

We have Billy bookcases all over the house. Two full sized ones in the living room, a full size plus half width but full height in the spare room, a half-height in DS' bedroom and a full height one in the kitchen which has all the cookery books, plus baking tins, the recycling sits on there, a box of DS' craft stuff, the iron, vases, slow cooker, chicken brick - all kinds of stuff.

Could you replace an existing smaller bookcase with one of those to give you more shelf space? Then you could get some baskets from Cargo or wherever to go on there for toys as well as having books on it?

Can you tell I love IKEA?

I love Ikea too.

This is the first house we've had that the books are in the front room and it's awesome.

There's just one full size in the back room at present, and it's near collapse.

You know, I think getting the shed is the key.

The shed sounds good. We have a whole garage full of god only knows what. DH takes things in there and they are never seen again!

sounds like the bath tub in this house its full of stuff and we are doomed to using the shower with is just no good for achy muscles or a long soak with a good book.

The last house we had a massive garage with no car in it, plus a separate room off the massive kitchen diner as an office. It's such a squeeze here.

When we moved there were 8 large items of furniture out of the garage for the council to collect, not counting the fridge they'd already taken.
And two cars worth of car boot-stuff my sis took.
And there were still a couple of (knackered) bookshelves in when we left. Now everything is in the pantry.

i have a similar arrangement for laundry - bags at the foot of the stairs to sort the washing into as i go along - as omicro says then you can see when loads are ready to go. Ikea storage for toys and baskets for small objects. i have a list of morning jobs - quick tidy round downstairs, clean kitchen. ignore upstairs!

steam generator iron means you only have to do one side of cottons, speeds up the ironing a lot.

you iron both sides of clothes

You know, you can get rid of books - nothing bad happens.

If you're not likely to read it again or you're embarrased having it on show (eg one of DH's airport novels), what good is it doing anyone gathering dust and taking up space that could be occupied by things you and your DCs do use?

The worst that can happen is you'll have to buy the odd copy again - is it worth hanging on to everything you've ever read?

My sister with one child,telling me I just have to be organised.Come back to me when you've had 3,and then give me some advice.aaaagh!,although i love her dearly.if you are really organised with 3, you have ocd.

1. De-clutter entire house - work it room by room. Black bag everything to chuck away or donate. Do it on your own otherwise other members of the household will protest your ruthlessness!

1. Once you've de-clutter, make a rule to de-clutter every few weeks - this shouldn't take long.

1. Then go through each room and ensure you have adequate storage solutions for each room. Enforce the "put everything away when not in use" rule. Enforce it for yourself especially. Each and every day, tidy up each room - if you've de-cluttered it should take 5 mins max each room.

1. Cleaning thereafter becomes a synch. I hoover and dust just once a week for 1 hour max (large 3 bed house). DH deep cleans bathroom 30 mins max once a week and I deep clean kitchen 30 mins max once a week (remember, surfaces incl. floors have been regularly de-cluttered so this reduces cleaning time).

1. Limit laundry time to the 60 min cycle and put it on as soon as you get up so it's out drying quickly. We don't iron in our household. Only DH's shirts and then he does them himself :-)

1. Biggest tip: de-clutter and clean a little and often.

WhatsWrongWithYou, the thing is, I have reduced the number of books we have, got rid of novels I won't read again, and old dinosaur books with incorrect drawings of brontosaurii for instance.

I recently got this Ikea Expedit bookcase to put by the door, and that holds:

• handbag, nappy bag, hats (top shelf)
• sewing supplies, out of reach (second shelf)

sewing machine (third shelf)

• cloth (bottom shelf)

I'm thinking of another to tidy away:
shoes (slot the shoe rack in)
DH's bag and shoes
library books

That should clear the dining/family room and stairs.

DS has baskets on the floor for his toys, and those are great.

Over-door hooks account for bags as well as coats/scarves.

But bookcases are, basically, the answer, as far as I can tell. They create so much extra horizontal space that life becomes much easier.

As for the worry about whether these are surfaces one "has" to dust? Hmmmm.... nah.

That Expedit thing looks really handy - but can I ask which shoe rack fits into it? The others on the website seemed to be too wide. Or maybe they fit when it's turned sideways?

It will just about fit our John Lewis shoe rack. They don't have it on the website anymore, but it looks a bit like this one

We are having people round this weekend, so I am going to re-read this thread very carefully. Thanks very much, vastingavay!

I break up tasks into 15 minute intervals or so.

For example, I hate laundry. So I fold the clothes as I take them off the rack and put them folded, in piles (my stuff, OH's stuff ect). Then, I put the piles on our bed, go off and do something else and put the clothes away later. Its only because I hate doing it.

I'll be going back to work full time in a couple of weeks, so I plan on doing set things each day.

My Mums tip for bathrooms is to use a daily spray cleaner to keep it fresh and also pour bleach down the loo at night for a long soak - this may not be practical if you have young children, but you can pour the bleach down before you go out.

Also, I keep clutter to a minimum and throw out/recycle what I don't need.