Newly decotrated room for teen - how to get her to keep tidy?

[Echobelly]

DD (13) has been away on summer camp, back tomorrow. After 6 years in the house her room has finally been redecorated - it was difficult to do because the room was dominated by a massive built-in wardrobe which meant there was no way to do it incrementally, everything had to be ripped out and redone at once - wardrobe, walls, curtains, carpet

Anyway, DD's tidiness record is frankly appalling, even worse than DH and I, and we're pretty untidy. It wasn't helped by the huge, falling apart wardrobe which made it hard to store clothes in a logical way and stuff ended up flung all over the place. With the room redone we need to prevent:

• Every surface getting covered in piles of stuff
• Make up/food/drink/craft materials getting congealed underneath all the stuff on surfaces (this didn't happen massively, it wasn't that gross, but there were odd small, gooey spills)
• Glitter/make up/craft materials getting on carpet now she'll have a new one and not a crappy old brown one

Clothes flung everywhere and clean ones getting mixed up with dirty (TBF I know that one - it's making sure she puts away her laundry straight away)

She's not 'hoardy' and if you hold up something that looks broken/just generally a piece of crap and ask if you can chuck it, she'll say 'Yes'. I chucked a fair amount of crap while clearing the room and there is a load more that I think we can get rid of while clearing out.

Any good routines to get into to keep on top of it?

No food and drink upstairs (other than water). And if she can't be responsible, no craft stuff upstairs either.

Add a five/ten minute tidy up at the end of each day as part of getting ready for bed.

Other than that you just have to appeal to her sense of decency/responsibility. Explain its cost a lot to do and you'd really appreciate it if she could keep it clean. Explain the difference between messy (mostly fine really) and dirty (not fine). Ask her for her thoughts on how she can keep it tidy and work together to get a system in place.

Accept that it probably won't be super tidy (it's clean that matters!) and learn to shut the door and not think about it! Get a cheap rug to cover the nice carpet.

New bin or 2. Big laundry basket...
Baskets for bits and bobs.
Lots of hangers..

My one is a very, very messy person. She has enough storage, she just decides not to use it. The floor is favoured over the nice bookcase we got her.

3 weeks ago she looked at it and decided to give it a bloody good clean. Dusting, windolene, organising, putting books back on the bookshelf...she even swept and mopped the floor. So far it still looks ok, but the cycle will start again...I nag her, she says she's too busy texting her friends, it builds up and builds up, I nag even more, she gets into a strop, then she finds the cat won't even go in there (this can take weeks), and she has a purge.

My friend has had 2 teenagers (now in their 20s) and she says this is normal.

I agree.
My rules used to be

• when you get up you make the bed, open the blinds and window slightly to air out
• dirty washing goes in the basket or it goes in the bin
• only water upstairs
• if you want to go out on a Friday for the weekend your room is dusted down first and tidied up

Thanks - all useful stuff. Airing the room would be good, as it does get... close in there. I think banning anything other than water would be a good idea as well - plates, bowls and spoons did build up a bit.

She has a big laundry basket already and is fairly good at putting stuff in it, but the trouble is when the dirty stuff she leaves on the floor gets mixed in with the clean she hasn't put away!

There is a rug already which I imagine she's keeping but I am wondering about a small washable rug to go near any dressing table we might get so makeup spills can be washed off. We have ordered a very stain resistant carpet as well.

Would it work in your household to get her to do her own laundry on a designated day? Or even just the folding/ironing/hanging up part. It might help reduce the amount of clean clothes that end up in the laundry basket if it makes more work for her.

(I have found that chores like putting away laundry have a better chance of being done right before screentime starts.)

In our house the expectation is that in the morning the dc fold back bedding, open curtains and window, put clothes in the laundry basket or away and in the evening spend 2 minutes tidying away before bed.

My job is to cajole, threaten, beg and nag to ensure this happens.

You just make it a daily thing then it becomes routine. Every morning both my teens sons will pull back their duvet to air the bed. They shower, get dressed and then open their windows to air the room. This means that the curtains and blind are always opened up.

They both have to return to their rooms on a school day to collect stuff from in there so the window is closed and the duvet pulled back into the made position.

Laundry had always gone into a laundry hamper and anything that can be worn again goes into a specific drawer in their wardrobe, never on a chair. That drawer gets emptied out completely every school holidays so every 6 weeks or so. After a shower they fold their towel and put it back onto the heated towel rail too. Each person in this house has their own towel colour so there is ownership.

Only water is allowed in their rooms, no food ever but then they do have a playroom where all crafts/toys are kept.

Any room tidying is done way before bed time otherwise they just feel like they are too tired so mid evening is good.

The reason this has worked in our house is because from a very young age we ensured it was done every night.

I was a messy teen. As an adult I’ve realised this was predominantly because, although in theory I had ‘plenty’ of storage, in practice I didn’t have the right type of storage. Eg - Randomly deep and fundamentally useless shelves in a wardrobe but no drawers for socks, underwear, etc. Get the storage right and magically it’s easier to keep tidy and this worth the effort.

Thanks all! DD was blown away by her new room, even though it's not fully furnished or recarpeted yet (will be done when we get back from holiday). She reckons having the sort of storage she wants - as I thought, more drawers - will help her organise things better. We've cleared out some books and other objects surplus to requirements.