Feeling low with clutter

Becles

Mine have boxes in their bedrooms and stuff in the cupboard under the stairs.

On an evening, anything in the sitting room has to be cleared up and put away. Although the rest of the house might be cluttered, at least I can sit down and chill out in a clutter free room on an evening

mumslave

Oh clutter. Every so often I take the empty wash basket and start from the top of the house, going into each room and picking up anything that shouldnt be there, then work my way through our three floors, putting things away as I go. It stays clutterless for about 2 hours, then my 17 month old gets up and thats it, clutter all over again. Never mind the 4 and 3 year old. I am constantly depressed by the state of the house, I know its clean and for the most its tidy but it never seems good enough for me. However I also resist the urge to clean all day....my step mum did this when we were growing up and to be fair there were 5 of us, but I never remember her playing with us or having fun with her. I dont really want to be that sort of mum. So I just do what I can in the week and at the weekend I get a lot done when DH is at home.

*Louise*

I don't like clutter, I like clear surfaces and neat rooms, but with 3 kids it's not easy.

I have half a dozen toy boxes with lids that are stacked away upstairs. I have things like Lego, playmobil, sylvanian families, happyland etc in each so when the kids want to play with them, I bring the box out, and the stuff all goes back in when they are finished. Stops everything getting muddled up and lost.

Downstairs I only have a wooden toy box and DD's dolls house.

I keep boxes for toys so that I can put stuff back in their boxes and into the loft for storage. Every now and then we swop stuff around, or if they wont be played with again, having them in their boxes helps when taking them to a car boot sale.

jeffgeorge - you really shoudn't stress about it. If your place is clean, that's the main thing. Can I ask though - what do you mean by string around the tv stand???:o

bellrooster

I just came upon this thread whilst working up the courage to go and tackle the rest of my daughters bedlam.. *ahem* I mean bedroom!

Honestly I started yesterday I cannot believe that one 4 year old can have so much 'stuff'.

I hate clutter, we've moved house recently and a LOT of our clutter from the old house is boxed up in the garage and our new house seems full to busting without even starting to think about unpacking it.

and then there's the man mess, eg, if said man wants to listen to his music through his headphones, afterwards the headphones will just be cast aside with the lead trailing along the floor, same with anything else man uses.. shoes, socks, pants..

fernliebee

We have a lot of clutter, but I am also loathe to get rid of thing that are played with. DD doesn't really have a particular favourite thing, she likes to play with everything hence it's hard to get rid! I have all the set's of things in boxes in her room and she either plays with them in there, or brings them down in the box. I'm a bit anal about sets and they must be kept together, Duplo in the stickle bricks box makes me sad! ha ha!

The things that annoy me are the lot's of little individual toy's that don't have a category, we have a box in the living room full of these 'misc items' and of course these are the most regularly played with.

In the evening it is all shoved under the stairs out of sight and that is fine by me. When new baby is born in June there will be even more clutter to come so just gonna let it go until........hmmmm the kids leave home?

mandi

I have a " special " cupoard for my clutter, The knack is to open the door about an inch, throw clutter in ,then close as quickly as possible:D

minimoneysaver

I have just had a bit of a clear out and my daughter has let me get rid of her old play kitchen, two bin bags full of toys and a few old chunks of baby/todder plastic! To be honest it is all chunks of plastic to me, lol. My daughter has her build a bears and a bag full of outfits for them. Everything else seems to just sit there now. I am all for Lego and other construction toys, but I really hate the big plastic bits.

beckseven

Clutter depresses me too but I have two kids-one 4 and one 1 so have a fair few toys! I have a purge before Christmas and birthdays and with DS who is 4 he now keeps a lot in his room as I can just about trust him not to shove things in his mouth now. He has a toybox in his room and I have boxes downstairs but there is always ride on toys, pushchairs etc downstairs but I'm used to them! I tidy away each night to keep my sanity! Also me and my husband are on a declutter mission with the rest of the house and each night clear out drawers and rooms etc to make things easier.

Brighton_belle

I've just paid for a professional declutter and it's the best £200 for 5 hrs I've spent, especially as I have already made back £105 on ebay through selling what was decluttered.(I am not well off, but decided this was worth more than a holiday to me)

And the experience was so inspiring and helpful it has left me with clear goals on how to tackle the rest and how to prevent more in the future.

I want to live as simply as possible and for everything I own to have a home or a use or it goes.

gabyjane

I LOVE decluttering..is there such a job as it as would love to go into someones house and transform it! We have i think quite a tidy house most of the time..when we start accumalating bitsit goes in the garage.. i get a black bag and go round doing rubbish, i then do another bag for shredding, another for charity..breaks it down and makes it less stressful!