Ok, those of you whose homes are pretty much always tidy, how do you do it ??

[nutcracker]

Mine should be spotless, I don't work, we have more than enough room and yet it looks like a tip again.

I have started making myself fill at least 2 black bags with stuff to put out or give away each week, but it still doesn't look right.

I tidy it and it looks great but then half hour later there are bits and bobs everywhere.

Right now on the living room floor there is....xmas cards that have fell down, about 3 lots of instructions for things, several bits of toys, pj's and a poster of ds's, a plate, a pencil case and ds's bike.

I am not a naturally tidy person but it is starting to pee me off now.

I

I find periodically bellowing I HATE THIS HOUSE I WANT TO MOVE OUT I CANNOT BEAR IT A MOMENT LONGER spurs some of the other inmates into action.

Although removing oneself from the scene of the crime with a nice glass of wine is also quite effective. Hence I'm up here on MN.

Our ouse is reasonably tidy.
Toys are always put away before we leave the house, and before emaltimes. And dd1 does the same in her room. Dh tends to leave piles of paper and stuff all over, but they get put in the spare room where the pc is, and he has to sort t then.
Dds each have a toy box in the lounge for bits, then they have a box for their kitchen toys and teasets and a pop upo thing for their dolls and bits.
Books go on the bookcase, as do colouring things.

Alternatively, go out all of the time, then they have no time to make a mess

I haven't read the rest of the replies yet, but I will say I have a tidy flat. I have two boys of 2.5 and 5.5 and we home school so they are here all the time. The boys have a large enough bedroom to play in but often want to play in the lounge. I am a fairly organised person. (though cleaning is a separate issue).

So, all that said, I would say the key is two things. First, everything must have a home. How can you tidy if you don't know where to put it. And with kids, it is even more important that they know where to put things. Second, I never let it get too messy int he first place. Throughout the day, we periodically tidy up. So if the kids want to play a gane with me I say "sure, but we just need to put these toys away first". It only takes a minute and they do it quick as they have a game the want to play.

There is one other thing as well. I do give stuff to charity shops on a coupe of times a year. I keep the stuff they really play with and get rid of stuff that is not worth keeping. Their room is really quite full, but I use a lot of storage (ikea units and shelves and child height book shelves.

oi nutcraker. i catted you, have you got it yet? (sorry for hyjack...carry on).

Not sure nightowl, will go look now.

I think I am gonna have to do the unthinkable and move the computer, hence meaning that I will have to say bye bye for at least a week whilst I get a new connection set up.

Now do I move it upstairs or into the dinning room ?? Am thinking upstairs in my room at the mo, as if I move it to the dinning room I can still see it and it will still be in the way.

HELP

Nope no message nightowl, you can email me direct if you like [email protected]

depends how often you use it, will it be a pain to have to go upstairs to use it, will you have to leave the kids on thier own while you MN? are they old enough for you to do that?

maybe you could have it in the dining room and get a nice desk or something...

Me and DH are quite tidy people and a messy house drives us mad. As a result, we spend a lot of time tidying. The kids are older now (9,6,5) so they now help us, by, scraping their plates, putting them into the dishwasher, tidying their toys away, and picking up bit of rubbish. That said my house can be messy during the day but its always tidy by the time we go to bed (never tidy when the kids wake up though ) Does feel that I am always doing the same thing though, picking up clothes, doing dishwasher, wiping worktops and table down, clothes washing etcetc)

looking around my living at the mo, there is nothing on the floor. There is a bebop toy on the sofa (which is mine ) and my computer desk has a hair band, a pen, one of DS' hand held toys, a dvd and a can of coke (which is also mine)

DH went back to work on the 27th so I spent ages cleaning the living room. I even moved the sofas so I could hoover under them and get rid of the cobwebs! It looked really nice when I had finished.

About an hour later, DD and DS brought some toys down from their bedroom and you would have thought the room hadn't been cleaned for ages.

I'm quite tempted to ban them from the room if it is tidy. (If only I could!)

Small children = messy house. All you can do is try to keep it down a bit. We had a playroom when they were small and tried to keep the living room tidy by chucking it all in there and shutting the door.

Big kids = messy house. But mainly in their own rooms, so just shut the door on it. And if you run out of mugs you usually know where to find them.

It's hard. I've had 22 years of it. It gets easier when they aren't under 5 any more. I hate mess so we've always been reasonably tidy. I work full time. We both, my ex husband and I, had the same views and we both would always automatically put things away all the time so wouldn't go upstairs without taking anything going up there. So it doesn't mount up too much. It's still very hard. It helps that we have a cleaner who tidies too every week day morning - took me 15 years to be able to afford that and then with 3 teenagers all their mess goes in their own rooms which I've refused to tidy for years. The cleaner does a bit of a tidy each day there and then they often do it when it gets beyond tolerance. Shutting their doors helps.

We have a clothes and toys blitz every 2 months or so, with the aim of taking at least one bag to the charity shop.

We have a filing box for bills etc and a letter rack for recent arrivals. The recent arrivals get filed every week and the filing box sorted every month or so.

The girls have tubs under their beds for specific things - eg: doll box, dressing up box, playmobil box and we go through these during the toys and clothes blitz, making sure that everything is in the right box.

Old papers go straight into the recycling bag.

Everything has a "home" and woe-betide anybody who doesn't remember this - dp is utterly anal about this and the rest of us daren't give him reason to moan!!