Need to know the secret to having a clutter free house!

[KaySamuels]

I need to tidy up and everywhere I look there are piles of letters and paperwork, magazines, toys, text books, aaargh! I don't know where to start! My house is always clean, but never feels tidy! Also I am resigned to having toys everywhere I look as I childmind and have a 2yr old!

If you have a home where you aren't slowly drowning in clutter the please tell me your secret!

Have put my bills away, and took out a binbag full of clutter, and a huge pile of paper recycling!
I'm off to bed now but am gonna read this thread tomorrow to motivate me further with the decluttering! I have been up and down the stairs too, I'm fighting a one battle here so it's no wonder it gets too mcuh!

ooh flibberty... rotating toys sounds good - I do it on a longer basis (like traintrack goes away for months, then I remember where I put it) - Wednesday nights sounds a bit more practical Will try it.

Also like geekgirl's note about money that was 'wasted years ago'. I hang on to all sorts of useless crap for precisely that reason.

We have 4 kids, so people are endlessly taking pity on us and giving us binbags of outgrown clothes. I can't even get 'in' to the outhouse at the moment

Tickle, people also give us tons of clothes - most of which I would not even insult the charity shop with.
Our tip has a container for clothes, which are sorted through for resale, or the yuk ones are shredded to recycle. So I feel no guilt at all about slinging things in there.
I only keep clothes that I would have chosen and paid for had I seen them in a shop, the fact that they are given to me doesn't make grotty things more attractive!

Good point well made

I am not perfect and neither by a long stretch of the imagination, is my house. But 4 people in a little house = STUFF. Sometimes I cry because I feel like I just wade through it all to get from room to room, then I have my loft session, trip to tip, put everythign where it should be an manage to keep it all relatively straight for a few months.
Oh jeeeez just remembered its December soon - xmas pressies for both and birthday for ds1 - I cry a lot at the clutter in january

Flibbertyjibbet, i cry too but i don't seem to make an effort like you...with the loft expeditions etc.,
I used to do all that when the kids were younger then the loft got in a state and i can hardly get in it now, just another area that needs sorting...
I put all the paper work etc., in files and stuff and it is really organised...but nowhere to put all the files so they are just dumped on the bedroom floor near the bed.. i have to climb over them everynight. Don't have the luxury of an office or even an office space.
We have a tiny house, with 5 people in it, not enough space for alot of storage...bloody nightmare.

I would wholehearedly recommend joining the FLYbaby thread. They are only a couple of days in so you will soon catch up. It sounds cheesey but it works

It has been absoleutely fantastic for me.

The biggest thing that I have learnt is that you don't have to set aside 3hrs to do housework.

2 mins here, 5 mins there, put a couple of things away whilst waiting for potatoes to boil it all adds up and you will be surprised what you can acheive in a week.

NAO............ could you move in with me for a while please? I'll ply you with cake and alcohol!

Now, now, Mars, alcohol is definitely bad for decluttering!

my answer to OP - have a child-free and DH/DP-free house... easy peasy nobody to mess it up!!

not that any of us would want that of course, so my latest (today's) solution was go to local cheap shop and buy very expensive-looking pine storage unit with baskets in it for 20quid, and entice DC to stash their toys in it. Dadaaa, we have a conservatory that looks like a grown-up chill space instead of a playroom.

0ne would have to be dead to have an uncluttered house - either that or immensly boring with no life becuase they find hoovering an attractive choice over anything else.

clutter is much better

Yes custy, I like a lived in house.
Clutter that you have to clamber over to get from room to room, no, I don't want that. I can't live a peaceful life when every time I open a cupboard I am buried beneath all the stuff that falls out of it.
I would like to have a place for every thing and every thing in its nice homely lived in place, but in a teeny house I don't have enough spaces!!
I am absolutely not a tidy freak - my friend has one small daughter and even stresses that the wicker basket bought to keep toys out of sight in - is clutter!
She is going beserk cos she needs to have a potty in the bathroom at the mo (the shame of it, what will any guests think , and the minute she steps in the door with pram, papoose etc it is whipped out of sight into the garage - then she stresses that the garage is cluttered!
And she doens't have parties for her child as she can't bear the thought of OUT OF CONTROL children (ie mine ha ha) in her perfect house!
No, not me, I like lived in but tidy.