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Housekeeping

Find cleaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Housekeeping forum.

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Original poster

How do you have an uncluttered minimalistic house and live?

49 replies

evenhope · 10/05/2007 15:17

If you have a minimalistic tidy and clear house, do you not have "stuff"? Where do you keep books, DVDs, receipts, correspondence, tools, things with wires (mobile chargers), cameras and all the other paraphenalia?

(I ask as someone who is drowning in mess)

OP posts:

coweyes · 10/05/2007 15:55

Did have this at our previous house (although it was a very large 4 bed victorian terrace with attic and cellar) - no chance here and it drives me mad. Therefore only advice I can give it - move somewhere bigger.

dotcom · 10/05/2007 16:05

Definitely moving house helps!

I went to a new friend's house a while ago and she has 3 young boys of 9, 7 and 3. I walked into her lounge and could not believe it. She literally had in it 2 brown leather sofas, a coffee table and a TV/DVD player.

There were no DVDs, photos, pictures, ornaments, stuff.....nothing!

I had to comment because it looked like she had just moved in (or been burgled!) but she said her Mother had loads of clutter and she hated it so that was the way the house was.

Mind you, upstairs was another matter!!

brimfull · 10/05/2007 16:06

right I need storage for toys in ds's bedroom,feel spurred on now.

MaloryTowers · 10/05/2007 16:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

OrmIrian · 10/05/2007 16:14

No.

I have children instead.

MadamePlatypus · 10/05/2007 16:17

We have a cabinet full of muji boxes which stores things like mobile chargers and cameras. I wouldn't say our house looks clutter free because DS is constantly building things out of cushions and blankets and anything else that is left out (e.g. loo roll...), and our house is tiny so it looks messy very quickly, but if we didn't regularly purge books we wouldn't be able to move.

Those charity clothes collection bags are very good.

Rantum · 10/05/2007 16:23

"How do you have an uncluttered minimalistic house and live?"

Don't marry my dh (well, you can't anyway, but in theory).

He collects and collects and I throw out and throw out and he collects and collects and I throw out and throw out and he collects... and so we continue in a neverending cycle.

FrayedKnot · 10/05/2007 16:24

You have to live like a Shaker

Baskets, boxes, cupbaords, drawers, and tidy ALL the time.

I have to live like this, I hate to see clutter, but I am a bit more of a hide it in cupboards person than I like to admit

OrmIrian · 10/05/2007 16:25

rantum - that is like my DH. He gets it from his mother whose large 2-bed flat is slowly getting smaller and smaller as she collects more and more cr*p. Like bloody Steptoe and son his family...

Rantum · 10/05/2007 16:26

NeverEndingPileOfLaundry · 10/05/2007 16:39

Rantum - are you sure we are not married to the same man? It all sounds horribly familiar!!

Manictigger · 10/05/2007 16:40

Do you mean 'Property Ladder' style uncluttered minimalistic or just uncluttered? I think for the first you have to be a 'young professional' who never eats at home and who spends all their time out socialising, and for the second you just need a lot of built-in cupboards with deep shelves and a determination to sort out your filing every week (well, works for me).

NoodleStroodle · 10/05/2007 16:43

We are "normal" family who live in a white minimalist style house.

We have nothing hanging on the walls.

Everything is in cupboards - and that is the key to it - huge amounts of storage. The DVD player is in a cupboard, PC is in cupboard on pull out shelf...and then we can close the doors of the cupboards and hey presto - no mess! Insdie the cupboards is another matter...

Cleaning really easy coz there are no surfaces to gather dust!

BibiThree · 10/05/2007 16:49

I'm going to make filing my Sunday night job - the amount of mail we seem to get is astounding and even though we shred loads, we've still got loads to get through every week and it usually ends up in the magazine rack as the letter rack is overflowing. Then someone comes round and we shove it all in the hall cupboard and it just gets worse and wrose.

Suspicious about the storage though, the more cupboards and hidey places we've got over the years, the more we've kept!

ceolas · 10/05/2007 16:52

Expat is right. I need to chuck.

Madwelshwoman · 10/05/2007 16:55

What's an uncluttered house?? Might need to check the dictionary for that term

clutteredup · 10/05/2007 16:57

either you have an uncluttered house or you live i guess you might work out which cam i fall into (name a bit of a giveaway here) it also goes for the mind you know cluttered house cluttered mind, at least my house is clean, well mostly!!!

Malaleche · 10/05/2007 17:15

By ggirl on Thu 10-May-07 15:41:02
"correct me if I am wrong but doesn't a phone charger still emit electricity when left plugged in and therefore it is rather wasteful to leave them plugged in when not charging.

Am ready to be corrected as vaguely remember someone going on about this."

This reminds me of a story by Thurber where a great aunt thought that "electricity was leaking out all over the house" because some of the sockets didnt have light bulbs in them!

Original poster

evenhope · 11/05/2007 09:28

Thanks for all these replies. I can see where we are going wrong- we have no storage!!

This house has an integral garage so no cupboards at all downstairs (because everyone uses the garage for junk) but we use ours as a bedroom, and the dog lives under the stairs..

Will have to have a huge clearout.

(Doesn't help that DD1 moved out 4 years ago and her room still looks like she's just popped out for a minute )

OP posts:

rosieyorkshirelass · 15/05/2007 21:22

I say, get rid of your clutter on Ebay/car boot/ garage sale. Assess what storage you need for items in each room systematically- and keep making trips to Ikea to get your storage sorted. I have only discovered Ikea recently- and would never go anywhere else.The hard bit is keeping on top of what extra keeps coming into the house- especially with kids clothes, toys, etc.
I got to the stage where I was getting very stressed every day trying to find things, etc. So just one day- decided we were going to change the house for the better. Still alot to do now- but feel so much better. You will too!

NotanOtter · 15/05/2007 21:23

dont waste your money on crap

paulaplumpbottom · 15/05/2007 21:23

I think only single people with no kids and who are never home can do minimalist

Nightynight · 15/05/2007 22:01

well I have 4 children

Books on the bookshelves.
DVDs in a corner cupboard.
Receipts in a file in a box on the landing
Correspondance ditto.
Chargers etc in my desk.
Camera, I dont have one.

Having a huge cellar helps.
Go to Ikea and get shelves! Lots of them. The messiest mess looks better when its all on shelves.

AuldAlliance · 16/05/2007 10:08

No 10 on list of ways to save energy (from here ):

"10. Unplug your phone charger when not in use

In the UK, 95% of the energy used by mobile phone chargers is wasted. Only 5% is actually used to charge the phone and the rest is wasted by leaving the charger plugged in. Remember to unplug your charger when it's not in use. It takes a forest with an area equivalent to 500 football pitches to absorb all the CO2 produced by chargers that are left plugged in."

Switching the power off at the wall seems like a good idea (I can't, not an option in France...). Not very relevant to uncluttered houses, but a hobbyhorse of mine.

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