i could cry!!

[IAmBooyhoo]

eugh!

i visited my aunt today. her home is immaculate. now, yes it is brand new (moved in 3 weeks ago, new build) and yes she doesn't work and yes she has a partner to help her and no she doesn't have small children or pets but my god that house was clean. and to make matters worse, it was a surprise visit ( i know, i know i should have called first) so she had no warning and no time to tidy up but there wasn't even a water mark on her sink. everything was sitting perfectly like just out of a magazine shoot. even her teenagers' bedrooms were sitting perfectly as though they had never been slept in. not even a hairbrush sitting on the dressing table.. she showed me round the house and i admired everything a set of drawers that she had, assuming they had been bought for the house. "no", she said, "they were bought when dd3 was in nursery, so about 13 years ago" there wasn't a scratch or nail varnish stain on it. same with all the rest of the furniture. this woman raised six children. how is that possible that her furniture is all still so immaculate? it has made me want to sell recycle all my scuffed and stained furniture and start all over again (couldn't afford to) but i know that as soon as a new coffee table even looked at my 2 year old it would develop a scratch. how is that fair? i can say now with 100% certainty that my home will never ever reach that level of perfectness, no matter how much i want it to. i feel really crap about my 'well worn' home now.

A tidy house is the sign of a dull woman!

[yes] that helped a bit.

but i have ordered convinced the dcs to help me tackle some of the most untdy rooms today to make myself feel a bit better about my hovel. by the time they leave for uni i think we'll have made significant progress

OFFS!!

i meant yes that helped a bit.

doh!

Does she have a cleaner? I cannot imagine that level of tidiness without having an uptight personality as well, albeit hidden from public view. (Mind you, I can be uptight without that attitude to tidiness). I really wouldn't want to know how she does it though as I just do not like houses like that.

clam or a marvellous husband [buwink]

expect ths thread to be bumped in 20 years' time with photographic evidence of my acheivements. i expect you all to still be here for the grand unveiling.

nope no cleaner. she doesn't work anymore due to ill health and her teens are out at school/uni during the day. her husband also works so she is on her own most of the day, i guess that's when she gets it all done. i think because she is never ever starting from a point where real tidying needs to be done then her cleaning s so much quicker and easier than say moving 2 weeks worth of washing to get a clean plate in my house

I don't care what anyone else's house is like when I go to visit, so long as I can clear a space to sit down and we can find the kettle between us all is well :)

However, I do get pissed off when people make comments like 'A tidy house is the sign of a dull woman' or 'if her house is so tidy her kids are neglected' or whatever. It is possible to do both if you give a shit (and I don't care if you do or don't) and if it's important to you (I don't care if it is or isn't). Sniping about those than can & do isn't very nice - especially if those who can and do don't give a shiney shit what your house is like.

(Sorry Clam, not picking on you, I'm sure you only said it in jest)

Booy - I will be here. You could post some photos now so we know where you started

A lot of it is decluttering and having good storage. If there is room for everything to have 'its place' then it's soooo much easier.

Heh heh, I've just spent the weekend in a freakishly spotless and tidy house and feel so relieved and relaxed to be back at home. So relaxed, infact, that I had a poo within 5 minutes of getting home, having been unable to for the 48 hours beforehand.

at the thought of posting before pictures.

i could post pictures of my house when i only had 1 dc but that would be cheating because i am about 50 million steps behind that now.

yes i am having a massive clear out and car boot sale/charity shop doing. my problem is i go at it for a day and then stop for ten.

haha bibbity, maybe a bit TMI. but glad you found some relief.

as i said i was in heaven in my aunts house. same with my mum's and my best friend's house. i could stay in their houses forever without my dcs

A clean house IS a sign of a wasted life! I know somebody who has two boys exactly the same age as mine. Used to visit her and you would NOT HAVE KNOWN that she even had children. I used to feel so slovenly and such a failure, until I realised that the houses of everyone else with children which I visited were just like mine! Before we know it, our DCs will have flown the nest and we will be longing to see their mess and crap lying around everywhere.

I have a friend whose house is like that. She does tidy up after her 2 kids more than I do. I think you have to try not to compare your house to your aunts.

My DC are horrible about it when I get annoyed about the mess. They are all teenagers but so lazy. They accuse me of having OCD.

I think having a tidy house is a control thing. If my house is tidy and clean I can cope alot better but my dc don't get this.

When I have just tidied up and the house looks ok nobody ever comes round. they think I keep dirty socks under the settee and never hoover probably. I have to run up and shut all the doors upstairs.

me too alemci. when my house is clean and tidy i feel so much more positive and able to do things but when it's messy it weighs me down. i think i might have missed the boat wth my dcs. if i had been able to maintain it the way t used to be then my dcs would have always been used to helpng me keep it at that level but now that iit is so bad, tryng to restore it is a mammoth task and actually a bit out of reach until my children are at the non messy age (when does that happen?).

ok i'm off to put the radio on and see if i can make a dent in the mountain of debris that call home. wish me luck!

The most anally house proud, cleaning obsessed person I know, has just got divorced.

growing up, my parents house was always a real mess. I always thought that it was because I was the oldest of a big family, and that it was the natural effect of having kids in the house. And then we all grew up... And I realised that in fact my parents, and especially my mum, are really untidy people. My house is immensely tidy, my sisters' houses are tidy and clean, I have s nephew who keeps his room like a shot from an interiors magazine. My parents come to visit, and manage to reduce the place to mess in the first minute.

And I love having a house that looks beautiful. I want to look around and have my eye fall on paintings and sculptures, not on piles of laundry.

startail. the most untidy/messy person i know has just gotten divorced.

i have decided that my messy home is contributing to my wasted life as opposed to the idea that a tidy home is sign of a wasted life. my home depresses me (i suffer from depression) and makes me not want to bring people to my house or even go out of the house as i am constantly feeling like i should be cleaning the house. i think it is far more of a wasted life to let my messy house keep me from living. my children miss out on havng friends over and i feel like i cant accept play date offers as i cant return it. i am wasting my life by having this messy house. i know how much better i feel when it is clean and tidy, i seem to get energy from it and i want to go out with teh dcs and do things and meet people whereas when it is messy i almost feel as if people can tell when they look at me that back home my house is a sty.

i have done the dishes and swept the floor so far

I think the whole mess/depression thing is a bit of a chicken/egg situation. Motivation is a real problem when you're depressed and looking at a big job like cleaning and just not having the motivation to do it can be really disheartening. I do agree though that having things in order can make the world seem a less daunting place, and it's certainly true that once you do a massive tidy up and get everything sorted into its rightful place keeping the house clean from then on is much easier.

How's the cleaning going Booyhoo?

I think you're right about depression and mess exacerbating each other.

Have you tried doing some gradual de littering so that there's less stuff to make a mess?