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Housekeeping

Find cleaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Housekeeping forum.

Original poster

is yours a show home or lived in ??

47 replies

needanightoutsoon · 17/03/2010 21:23

I always used to be a clean freak - way over the top, when i had one DC it was easy to be that way as i had the time being a SAHM. i then had DS and relaxed A BIT .

However now that i have DD(9) DS1(6) DS2(10MO) i have totally relaxed i still have the cleanfreak in there somewhere but my heart sinks that i dont have the 'show home' i once had.
Its more lived in these days its clean dont get me wrong i clean and wash all the time.

its just the bottomless ironing basket and toys everywhere i look, that really get to me.
every day, i try sooo hard to put everything in order ie kids toys in rooms babys toys in basket in living room coats hung up in rooms shoes away, kitchen tidy and cleaned. floors hoovered and mopped.

BUT within an hour of everyone being home theres shoes in the hallway, coats thrown over the stairpost, toys brought downstairs from rooms, juice spilt, babys toy basket emptied, snacks dropped on floors hubby cooking and using every pan he can find!.Not to mention bathrooms and bedrooms ransacked!

The last few weeks its got me to the point where i think why bother im not spending the whole day cleaning to have it undone in an hour.

So is my house normal ? its clean but a bit untidy with a full ironing basket and washing basket that never seem to empty and it could do with redecorating (ive bought all new throws cushions curtains etc but never find the time to paint!).

or am i losing control and i should be better at 'housekeeping' and should have a show home as im at home all day with only one DC ??

Or am i just moaning lol xx sorry its long ...

OP posts:
differentID · 17/03/2010 21:26

you are normal. I don't have kids yet and my house is already like that

Maybe you need to get dhto help with the maintaining of hygeine after he cooks though? You are not the only person living in the house, nor are you superwoman. Get everyone to muck in.

DecorHate · 17/03/2010 21:31

Maybe less cleaning and just concentrate on tidying up ?

I aim to Hoover a couple of times a week, do bathrooms once a week and keep the kitchen reasonably clean & tidy. I certainly wouldn't want to be doing housework all day long.

Then concentrate tidying up where it bothers you most - I try to keep the hall fairly clear, coats, shoes & bags put away where they belong, etc.

Only tidy up toys at the end of the day.

It does help as they get older and the punt of toys decreases...

101damnations · 18/03/2010 20:11

Mine is definitely lived in.Apart from the kitchen which is brand new and kept spotless because I love it so much.

My problem is I'm a doer.I have a pile of magazines/seed catalogues/books/newspapers that I'm wading through,patchwork,and dinosaur island that the dcs and I are constructing,all on the go at the minute.Then if the weather is fine,I'm outside tackling the garden,or baking.There are just so many thing I'd rather be doing than picking up after other people and tidying.I'm actually quite happy to clean-it is the endless picking stuff up and putting it away that gets to me.

Original poster
needanightoutsoon · 19/03/2010 11:04

Hmmm,

me too im ok cleaning i actually quite like the sense of achievement it gives me(sad eh?) it sort of clears my mind.

but like you 101 its the endless picking up and also non appreciation that gets to me so that makes it seem an endless task, im just joining the fly thread picking up ideas etc i figure if im better organised and stick to certains jobs on certain days instead of trying to do it all in one day then i,ll feel less bogged down.

we have 'things' that cant be thrown away aswell so they sit in a 'neat mess' ha x

OP posts:
Tortington · 19/03/2010 11:05

deffo lived in

its a HOME.

NoahAndTheWhale · 19/03/2010 11:07

Mine is definitely lived in.

However as we are about to sell it, it needs a little tweaking

scrappydappydoo · 19/03/2010 11:12

LOL Noah - we're in the same position - definately lived in but needs to be show home!
I have been frantically decluttering but its is a battle with :
dh - the hoarder 'because it might be useful one day'
dd1 - the sentimental 4yr old who sees something she hasn't played with in ages and suddenly its her favourite toy
dd2 - the 2 year old who likes unpacking things!
scrappy - who's on the verge of ebaying the contents of the house

claricebeansmum · 19/03/2010 11:14

Previous home was like a show house and high maintenance.

Current home is very much a home - for some reason we seem to have got messier and care much less about chipped paintwork...

I much prefer current house!

NoahAndTheWhale · 19/03/2010 11:16

This weekend is the Big Declutter. I will be taking no prisoners

Bucharest · 19/03/2010 11:18

Lived in, spilt on, dropped on, etc etc.

No-one's last words ever recorded as being I should have mopped that floor more.

A friend of mine (who I was considering inviting over with her dd for a playdate) mentioned that she'd invited a little girl from her dd's class over. She was horrified...(the mother) "They played all afternoon, getting toys out! It was untidy! I went in there after a while and I said to both of them, "I will never invite this girl here again, if you insist on playing with all these things"

Needless to say, playdate at ours has not been forthcoming....

thedollshouse · 19/03/2010 11:27

Is it possible to have a show home when you have children? I don't think it is.

Before we had children we had my 18 month niece stay with us and it took us 2 days to clean up after her, there were sticky fingerprints everywhere. Now that we have a child we have had to relax more, the walls are grubby and we have scuff marks from where cars have broomed into them. There is also far more clutter as ds has loads of toys, we have good storage but it is nowhere near enough.

scrappydappydoo · 19/03/2010 11:29

Bucharest - what did she think you do on a playdate??
When i was growing up my huse was very 'showhome' and I know a lot of my friends were intimidated by it I think I've just gone the extreme other way now
Noah - where are you? perhaps we could houseswap and then we wouldn't need to tidy ;)

HarveysFurniture · 19/03/2010 16:25

I used to be a bit of an excessive neat freak, but these days my home is definitely more lived in. I bought lots of storage space etc so now i don't worry to much about it looking untidy as everything had it's own place. I think I've grown out of my obsessive phase. Liz

Starbear · 19/03/2010 16:40

We are in the process of getting an extension (very small house)We are going to design out the mess factor. Wooden floors only downstairs. Serious amount of storage. Office/setting room toy free. I'm going to have fitted wardrobe/cupboard in new hall so coats hats gloves bags get put away on hangers and hide behind doors. It not going to look like a show home but comfortable enough to relax once Ds is in bed. At present we don't have toys in the sitting room & Ds has been a star at putting most things away. I give away lots of stuff to the charity shops & friends. I think Harvey A place for everything and everything in its place saves my sanity & tons of time. I do have to declutter because I keep thinking I'll do a boot sale but I've got to get real its never going to happen so I'm giving it away.

NoahAndTheWhale · 19/03/2010 17:51

Sounds a great idea scrappy

We're in Bedfordshire and going to move to York - how does that sound?

SparkyToo · 19/03/2010 19:47

My boys bedroom literally looked as though it had been burgled this evening. I made them tidy it up before they went to bed.

I'm a clean freek, but sometimes just don't have the energy to keep standards high!!

MamaLazarou · 20/03/2010 12:30

I can't imagine wanting to live in a show home. I'd find it hard to relax. Clean and (relatively) tidy is good enough for me. We are pretty good at decluttering every now and again, though.

LouMacca · 20/03/2010 13:10

Lived in and i love it that way. My house is clean and tidy but by no means a show home and I wouldn't want it to be.

We have an 'art gallery' of all the DCs pictures/paintings in our hallway and people that come round love it. Their friends have also added to the gallery and I change it every few weeks.

I am actually scared to sit down at my SILs house - you wouldn't even know that there was a child living there!

I love put my DCs homemade decorations on the xmas tree, I lothae my SILs themed gold and purple room at xmas with no trace of a child!

MmeBlueberry · 20/03/2010 13:14

My house looks like it has been burgled, permanently.

I remember watching one of those FBI shows on TV. The crew were called to a house where a murder had taken place. The contents of the hall cupboard were spewed all over the hall with doors open and possibly off their tracks. The investigators had no idea what had happened.

My hall was exactly the same at the time. It wasn't exactly rocket science.

TulipsInTheRain · 20/03/2010 13:16

my house is extraordinarily lived in.

downstairs is kept reasonably clean and tidy but tbh i go through phases of not being able to muster up the energy to care about the state of the playroom and with the kids running in and out the floors are perpertually muddy (we're surronded by muddy fields on all sides)

upstairs is worse... i try and keep it tidy but there's three of them and only one of me and I don't have nearly enough storage so i'm fighting a losing battle

missmoopy · 20/03/2010 13:23

Most definitely lived in

ASecretLemonadeDrinker · 20/03/2010 13:26

My home is beyond 'lived in'. Despite getting rooms as clean as clean and tidy as they could be, within an hour or so the whole house looks like squatters live here There is endless rice krispies everywhere, within about 30 seconds the DSs can have most their toys tipped out of their tubs - it's an nightmare. I sweep the floors countless times a day but it sooo hard because they then go into another room and trash it. Yesterday, 6pm as we got home the house was pretty tidy. By bedtime DS1 had flooded the bathroom, put toothpaste on the mirror, un made my bed and even pulled the top mattress off, there was cookies everywhere, finger prints on the mirrors, an upside down jam sandwich in the living room that had smeared over the floor and leather sofas, shepherds pie trail from the table to the kitchen that DS2 had walked everywhere, ALL his 9 boxes in his bedroom were tipped up, he had ripped up one of his books he didn't like, both were covered in snot and general goo... I am seriously considering locking off rooms during the day!

missmoopy · 20/03/2010 13:31

Lock rooms? I am beyond that...sometimes I consider striking a match and chucking it behind me as I walk out of the front door!!

TulipsInTheRain · 20/03/2010 13:33

[ponders missmoopy's plan]

[decides general muddiness of house would probably extinguish match]

[adds a can of petrol to shopping list]

sarah293 · 20/03/2010 13:33

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