As my kids moved into their own places, they asked me how I keep our house tidy and clutter free. They see friends parents houses where things are stuffed to the gills and are overwhelmed. I don’t want them to have to be members of the bag a week thread. ( meaning having had things out of control )Here are my rules:
Paper is the enemy of clean. Keep it out of your home as much as humanly possible. Period. Full stop.
If you like memory stuff: Have one box. for memory stuff. ONE. No bigger than a boot box If it gets too full it’s really time to cull. Once you have kids have one box. ONE for each of them. Cull at the beginning of every school year.
If there are things you think you don’t need anymore but are nervous about getting rid of them, put in a different area of your closet that’s hard to reach or under your bed. Set a date with a calendar reminder to see if you’ve wanted it since then. No more than one year. If you haven’t used get rid of it.
Cull every closet and drawer annually. Calendar reminders are really helpful here. If you schedule one group of drawers or a closet once a month that should work. If you have a big house schedule 2.
Don’t obsess over how to get rid of things. If you can quickly think of someone to give something to and they agree to take it, that’s fine. If you have something of real value you can sell it. Set a deadline to get it sold. If you haven’t done it by the deadline it’s probably never going to happen. But little is really of value used. Donate almost everything.
Your basement and garage are not way stations. Don’t use them for that. You can keep things you only use annually there. But if a year goes by and you haven’t touched it bye bye ( only exceptions things waiting for another kid you plan to have or if you really have something you want to pass on to future generations, like a christening gown etc… have ONE box. No more. There is such a small chance they are going to want your old furniture.
Don’t weigh down your life on that small chance.
Add your own advice, even if you haven’t followed it perfectly yourself.
^^^ And that all sounds good until your spouse or other family members feel differently.
As much as I might like to at times make all the calls on what can or can’t be in the house, this house doesn’t just belong to me. It can drive me nuts that H is a saver and I’m a get-rid-of’er …but I have to find some sort of middle ground or we can’t live here together!
My tip would be a full closet/drawer clean out twice yearly. Also in terms of clothes,as much as possible when one new item comes in, one old clothes item goes out.
I’m good on #1-6. It’s #7 that has been my downfall. When I was a working mom busy with kid activities and 50-60 hour work weeks, chucking stuff in the basement and garage was all too easy. Made the rest of the house clean but those were my weak areas
Only my spouse would even have a voice on this. And I made it clear to him this was my number one issue for my mental health. If you have a spouse that’s determined to live in clutter that is a real challenge and you have to do what you can.
As for my kids. It’s my only “ My house, my rules” rule.
I love the Bag a Week thread but I view it as a guide for what to do when you already have a problem in your house. This is about how not to get to that point. Sure not buying more than you need helps a good deal but it doesn’t cover situations when things are outgrown (physically like clothing or toys that kids have aged out of) broken or no longer of use or involve non bought things like kids art or schoolwork. This is about setting up a household where you are actively managing things from the beginning.
Those are good hints. One of my tricks is prioritize smaller/lighter items (in case I move someday). Heavy/bulky items are more likely to get tossed.
For me… there are some things I’m sorry I kept (and the special one will be hard to part with someday), but other things (first grade daily journals!) have brought me joyful memories upon revisit. It’s a balancing act, and I’ll thin it out more after I retire.
I think you have to stay visually aware of what’s going on around you. I know I am generally not visually aware on a routine basis, so every once in a while I have to step back and take a good look at what’s surrounding me.
For example – we used to have a kitchen where stuff could and would accumulate on top of the fridge – cereal boxes, soda bottles, thermoses, et al. I took a picture once of our kitchen and was amazed at how cluttered the top of the fridge made the room look.
We have the “one in, two out” rule. So if DH or I get a new shirt, two old ones have to leave the house. Same with books, shoes, purses, dishes, everything.
I posted this in the BAW thread. The cantaloupe rule: any decor item smaller than a cantaloupe has to go because it just add to clutter. Funny I have been successful following this rule without knowing it was a rule.
I have never understood the using the top of the refrigerator for storage - I know lots of people do it but it would drive me visually nuts!!
I sometimes think in terms of clutter we get too stuck on closets for instance. But what we really need to focus on are larger things like:
Extra furniture
Extra kitchen items (do we NEED 5 cookie sheets?)
ALL the garage stuff - how many shovels does one household need?!
My new mantra to my kids is before buying household items (furniture, wall art, rugs, etc.) is to “shop your home” - sometimes just rearranging or moving items gives them and you a better purpose without adding MORE stuff to your house. Like lamps. How many lamps in your house get used on a regular basis? How many are just there decoratively but rarely turned on? Move it somewhere where it is needed!
The majority of my house is “sell ready” at all times. I HATE clutter and like everything neat and in its place. Gives me anxiety to have clutter (I probably have a touch of OCD). Unfortunately my H has packrat tendencies and my D, well, she’s a slob when she’s home. I don’t go into H’s office or D’s room unless absolutely necessary. They clean both of their spaces and I keep the doors shut.
My two areas that need attention this winter are the attic overhang and the basement. H refused to sell/donate/toss a bunch of stuff that we should have gotten rid of when we moved so now it’s sitting in those areas. My father also sent extra things that I didn’t want/ask for when he shipped the few items I did request so I need to deal with those as well.
I managed to give a way a bunch of stuff when we first moved in (yeah for living in a college town where anything with a “free to a good home” sign will disappear in under 5 minutes), but not nearly enough.
My goal is to make our basement semi-finished by the end of the winter. That will entail a big declutter, re-organization, deep clean, and painting. H is currently on board. We’ll see how long that lasts when I ask him to pitch his 3rd grade baseball participation trophy that has been boxed up in the basement and moved 11 times or the piece of coal he collected when he was 6.
I also have a section of the basement marked off for D. It’s simple, basic furniture, that she wants for her first apartment along with kitchen items from our secon home. It’s all disassembled and neatly arranged. Now to get the rest of the basement to look like that!
My first empty nesting semester, I cleaned and organized from attic to cellar. Including the kids’ bedrooms/closets. When the kids came home for break, they noticed and were very impressed.
I told them: Every object has a home. If you put it back after you use it, the house will always look like this.
Of all my pronouncements, this really made a surprising impression on them.
I have plenty of paper in my house, all filed in a single, attractive filing cabinet in the office. I can’t see why you would consider my house “dirty” based on this.
Paperwork, neatly filed, wouldn’t be an issue in my book.
We do have one family member though that literally has every magazine she’s ever received in the last 30 year piled all over the house. Along with every card, letter, junk mail flyer, etc… There is so much cr*p that there are whole rooms that aren’t useable. There is no way to dust and clean properly and the house just feels gross.
A small percent of people have the only paper in their homes neatly filed. But I wholeheartedly believe that paper is the enemy of clean. Only a minority will ever win that war. Unless you are fastidious the best first step to keep a neat house is to keep paper out to the greatest extent possible. Every single person I know with a messy home has paper everywhere.
What constitutes paper? Mail? Magazines? Books? Newspapers? Photos? I would guess that overall people today have a lot less newspaper/magazines than in the past.
Of course if you have magazines and newspapers from 20 years ago that’s a problem…
Paper is.: Mail. Still get a lot though I think millennials get less. Boxes and mailing envelopes used for delivery of things. I know people who can’t stand to get rid of the boxes that come in…quite a mess. We deal with all mail immediately and boxes too. Kids art work and homework. And Receipts. These are the things I see overwhelming certain people’s homes.
