How is it possible to be so minimalist with a family of 5?

[Honey1975]

The other day I picked my ds up from a playdate after school and was in awe of how tidy the friends house was. Mainly because the house is quite small (cottagey) and they have 3 children (3 bedrooms).

The living room was uncluttered, it had minimal furniture, a smallish tv and no toys or other kids stuff lying around. There were a couple of uncluttered shelves and a couple of pictures on the wall. I thought where is all their ‘stuff’? My house there is ‘stuff’ everywhere you look! There was no sideboard or cupboard to even shove stuff.

The kitchen diner was the same, uncluttered, main table & chairs, a side unit and a small table that looked like they used for a desk. But all neat & tidy, no clutter.

My son said his friend shares a bedroom with his brother who is 4 yrs older. He sad their bedroom was tidy and he didn’t have too many toys.

When I went into this house I noticed a lovely feeling of calm. When I walk into mine I feel stressed by the piles of toys, arts & crafts, washing, paperwork, bags and general ‘stuff’ everywhere!

After we got home I felt like binning most of my house! I want that calm feeling and I want time to ‘be’ with my family and not constantly clearing up.

Anyone else’s home like this? Please tell me how you do it.

This sounds too good to be true. I have 3 kids and can confirm this must be witchcraft!

I have 4 kids and my house is neat, tidy and clean. I’m a SAHM so time is a factor, but also teaching the DC to tidy up after themselves is a big one! We also don’t buy ‘stuff’ we don’t need, so less clutter to get messy and, finally, we have very good storage so what we do have has a home and lives in it. I could not cope with a messy home, personally, it stresses me out so I make sure ours isn’t.

Friends of mine with messier homes either:
Don’t clean/tidy as much (fine).
Have kids who wreak havoc and refuse to tidy up (not so fine but not my problem).

It’s not witchcraft though, just organisation

Three children but no visible toys sounds as if they clear up all the time, not less than you do!

Are you sure there're wasn't a spare room somewhere stuffed full of things!

Mine isn't messy nor dirty. But there is stuff everywhere. It all has a place but my house is pretty crammed.

Def no spare room. The Mum is SAHM so I guess that helps with more time to tidy and keep things organised. I do think we buy too much stuff that we don’t really need and it ends up cluttering the place. Also we are not good at agreeing on homes for things so random things just end up shoved away in different places. Then we can never find anything!
I thought it was interesting about the minimal toys though. My daughter said to me recently she didn’t know what to play with as she has too many toys. Alot of her toys are in kallax type baskets that she never even looks in. Out of sight out of mind!

Its perfectly possible. Once you do a MAJOR decluttering of your home, it’s pretty easy to keep it tidy.

I grew up in a house with ‘stuff’ everywhere. Mostly unnecessary crap that just got moved from one place to another. When I grew up and got my own house I realised how much I prefer having a neat tidy home, and it’s much easier to keep clean.

Have you heard of Marie Kondo?

Sounds like you might like Marie Kondo or similar!

One of my parents is ahead of their time on minimalism and we had a small, tidy house, not too many toys etc. Was nice!

I am less into it and have a big, modern house which makes things easier, I think my DC (and DH!) have way too much stuff!

She must have less stuff.

Yes i have read some of MK and liked it but I don’t think I would ever get my DH or DC’s to follow it so not sure it would work.

Unless this Marie woman will come and personally train my household not entirely sure it would work for me either. To me a little clutter and possessions make a house into a home.

Is it not a parents responsibility to ‘train’ their DCs to be tidy? How old are the DCs?

The trick must be to just have less stuff to tidy away.

Less, less, less in a culture that urges us to have more, more, more is easier said than done!

I bet she has one hell of a Monica Geller cupboard

I like Flylady, it's helped, and is still helping me get rid of my clutter bit by bit.

I have 3 kids and I would say my home is like this.

We recently moved from a small terraced house to a 3 storey townhouse, so don't have enough furniture to fill the house. We also had a biggish clear out when we were packing.

I tidy a lot during the day - anything that comes out gets put back in its proper place when finished with. I never leave anything lying around, and have little piles of things by the stairs to go up/down!

We don't have a lot of toys because my kids don't really play with them much. I regularly have culls and get rid of things that haven't been played with for a long time.

I don't have many books because I use the library and don't have cds as we use Spotify.

If there is mess it makes me feel anxious, I can't relax until everything is tidy!

I should add that I am a sahm.

Also to add, I always tidy before I leave the house. Hate coming home to mess!

You have to de-clutter. We removed all toys from the living room, they are now in lidded baskets either in cupboards or on their rooms. So they can still play in the living room but they bring the train set basket (for example) in, play, then we tidy it away when they're done.

Also get rid of toys they don't play with. My Ds got £100 from selling some transformers on eBay. If they are getting cash its a good incentive for them!

I'm in the process of doing the cupboards now. It's amazing how much out of date Calpol can accumulate in one cupboard! Opening the cupboard to see organisation and tidiness is bringing me lots of joy!

Another vote for MK, it is life changing

I do the same as @mrsoutnumbered

I do it by strapping the kids in the car 5 mins early, then running back in for a few minutes to quickly put things away / put a wash on / load dishwasher. The kids are so used to it now

The thing is you cannot change other people (your DH) but you can lead by example. I’m very neat and minimalist and I did a big tidy using Marie Kondo. Gradually, my DH and DD - not my DS though! - have followed suit. Perhaps do it this way and see if it helps? I focused on my bedroom; the kitchen and dining room. I tidied the playroom but left the kids to remove toys if they wanted. Gradually they have passed on the old toys to family so
There is much less - but still much more than I would like. Still compromise has worked for me.