Valuations/viewings -How do I keep house tidy with 4yo and 11mo?

[titferbrains]

Any tips on when how to keep on top of everything for upcoming viewings?

my house always seems to be slightly messy, and I am starting to have a nervous breakdown about managing viewings with the kids around. My son dribbles on everything, and gets bored easily - so we have crap EVERYWHERE - little scatterings of toys, jumperoo in kitchen etc etc. We have a basement we use as a spare room - do you think I should just try to keep most of the kids toys down there and designate it a playroom? I feel like I need to spend my life fighting fires everywhere in the house, attacking the kitchen, then laundry, shifting bits of paperwork from room to room with no time to go thru them. am about to do a blitz before I go to bed for valuation tmw.

but to be honest I just want to tell the agents that this is a working family home and it's going to be almost impossible to declutter to an appropriate level for sale. I have already almost filled a storage unit with clutter and am planning to put a fair bit in the car!

Anyway how best to handle viewings? obv will try to keep kids out of the house...

My sympathies, it's really hard keeping on top of everything but important too, as lots of people find it hard to see through clutter.

I used to manage it by chucking all the toys in large storage tubs at the last minute and it's easier if they are all in one place, so IMO using the basement as a kids room is a good idea.

Anything I couldn't find a home for went in a box and out to the car - including my huge kitchen bin.

We also took down all personal photos and packed them away.

We also hired a lockup and have stored a lot of our crap stuff . I haven't seen any of it for almost a year so we probably could have chucked it. :)

Sorry just read about the storage unit and your car .

Will the estate agent do the viewings? If so just go out with the kids.

Good luck with the valuation :)

Not impossible to declutter. Kids can survive on far fewer toys. Mine didn't notice. As for decluttering non toy items. I can't even remember what we got rid of - we didn't put into storage, we binned or charity shopped.

The other thing we did is have a preferred viewing time and at least 24 hours notice. For us a 6.30-7pm viewing time meant we could have dinner, clear up and tidy as we were both in the house. Oh, that was after a good spruce the night before.

We also had a cleaner two hours a week which helped.

My children had one tub of toys downstairs which could fit under the dining room table and one tub in one of their bedrooms and that was all the toys they were allowed. The rest (god there are loads!) went up into the loft and the children forgot about them.

We did a massive, ruthless declutter and made sure that the house could go from lived-in to showroom (ish) within an hour so that we could take short notice viewings if necessary. Before a viewing, all the excess everyday stuff went into a couple of large tubs/boxes and into the loft just before we went out - made sure that the agent did all the viewings.

Always emptied and filled the dishwasher regularly so that it did not become another job to do just before the viewing. Did a downstairs hoovering after breakfast pretty much daily (crumb-dropping/trailling children) and hoovered the kitchen/dining room after every meal.

Good luck!

The dreaded viewings with kids!

There is good advice on here- cut back the toys as much as possible. I had a large toy chest I got for about £60 that everything got thrown into. Once that toy chest is full the rest can go into the loft. The chest was a God send!

I always remember the time I had 30 minutes warning about a viewing. I literally stuck all the dirty plates back into the cupboard. They dishwasher was already full so that was my only choice

Are you doing the viewings yourself, or is the EA doing them? Obviously if the EA is doing them, then go out. If you're doing them, get your husband to take the children out when the viewings are arranged. If you get a few viewings, ask the EA to arrange for the same time i.e. all Saturday morning, or all one evening. That way you minimise the number of times you have to tidy up.

Agree that you need one cupboard / place where you can put children's toys - we put our house on the market when our twins just turned 3 - it was quite frightening how quickly they could destroy a tidy room. We had a big understairs cupboard and loaded toys into plastic storage boxes that lived in there. Also tried to minimise the "kiddie" look by just having toys / books / evidence of children (!) in their bedrooms and tried to make the downstairs a child-free zone.

Also had one cupboard that I kept "viewings linen" in - best towels for the bathroom, matching duvets for children's bedroom, throws & cushions for the other beds - got them out for viewings then put them straight back afterwards so they were always clean / ready to spruce up the bedrooms/ bathroom.

Good luck!