Beautiful homes with kids and pets

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a house somewhat like that.

As other have said having more space and a lot of storage to be able to hide a mess is key (currently in a 2900sft house for the 4 of us). We currently have a playroom space that is a bit messier.

But honestly it was the same in our small 1500 sqft bungalow.

It is a mindset and i cant really understand how i could live differently. I am European and thats how our French appartment was growing up: you put something out you clean it up as soon as done with it because if not, everything gets overwhelmend by mess in 2 seconds and it is incredible exhausting and stressful to live in a crowded messy place.

I see so many of my american friends spending 2 hours in a big clean up, and then next day the house is the same disaster because DH left breakfast out, DS left shoes in middle of LR, DD left homework everywhere etc etc... And you face another big clean up.

So you spend your life either cleaning up to get a spotless house for one hour or staring at a messy house.

That is not how you do it! And that's the only secret. A million small regular routine gestures that you drill into your family, not a big weekly clean up. And everyone needs to participate, kids need to know where to put their stuff when they come home. After every meal everything gets cleaned right away. No food in areas that are not made to eat (kitchen and dining room and that's it). Intentional limited clutter. A system to manage dirty clothes and clean laundry so that there is never a pile waiting somewhere for a miracle etc...

And yes, on top of that, whenever i move around in my house i rearrange as if someone was about to come in. But thats really details that i do mindlessly: rearrange the coffee table, put away a bag, a lost shoe etc..

I wouldnt live any other way. But as another PP said, some of my kids' friends find that we have too many rules (the food rules and no jumping on couches and generally treating furniture reasonbly gently). I find some of my kids' friends quite feral (some have written on walls at other people's houses!!!) so i kind of think i am doing the community a favor by showing them that in some occasions you need to show restrain

Oh and we have a big dog and 2 cats. They also have rules..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a house somewhat like that.

As other have said having more space and a lot of storage to be able to hide a mess is key (currently in a 2900sft house for the 4 of us). We currently have a playroom space that is a bit messier.

But honestly it was the same in our small 1500 sqft bungalow.

It is a mindset and i cant really understand how i could live differently. I am European and thats how our French appartment was growing up: you put something out you clean it up as soon as done with it because if not, everything gets overwhelmend by mess in 2 seconds and it is incredible exhausting and stressful to live in a crowded messy place.

I see so many of my american friends spending 2 hours in a big clean up, and then next day the house is the same disaster because DH left breakfast out, DS left shoes in middle of LR, DD left homework everywhere etc etc... And you face another big clean up.

So you spend your life either cleaning up to get a spotless house for one hour or staring at a messy house.

That is not how you do it! And that's the only secret. A million small regular routine gestures that you drill into your family, not a big weekly clean up. And everyone needs to participate, kids need to know where to put their stuff when they come home. After every meal everything gets cleaned right away. No food in areas that are not made to eat (kitchen and dining room and that's it). Intentional limited clutter. A system to manage dirty clothes and clean laundry so that there is never a pile waiting somewhere for a miracle etc...

And yes, on top of that, whenever i move around in my house i rearrange as if someone was about to come in. But thats really details that i do mindlessly: rearrange the coffee table, put away a bag, a lost shoe etc..

I wouldnt live any other way. But as another PP said, some of my kids' friends find that we have too many rules (the food rules and no jumping on couches and generally treating furniture reasonbly gently). I find some of my kids' friends quite feral (some have written on walls at other people's houses!!!) so i kind of think i am doing the community a favor by showing them that in some occasions you need to show restrain

This is our situation. A playroom that is a bit messier, and daily routines to prevent the mess from building up. We also don’t eat outside the kitchen and dining room, and we further don’t wear shoes in the house. Our home doesn’t look “staged” at all times, but if company was arriving in 20 mins I could easily have the house looking immaculate bc of all these other routines.

The other obvious tip is eliminating clutter. If you don’t have storage for it, it has to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see pictures all the time of people with these beautiful 4000+ sq ft homes with immaculate decorations, furniture, etc and wonder how the hell they keep their homes looking like that with kids and pets.

I have a 2600 sq ft home, 3 kids and a dog and my house is clean and organized but you can definitely tell they live there. Kid stuff is always found somewhere (hair ties from the girls, piece of paper on the counter from drawing, a random Lego) and then there are dog blankets on the couch in the sunroom where the dog likes to sleep plus dog toys and a crate for her to sleep in.

Do I just have to suck it up until I am an empty nester before I too can have one of those houses?

Most of these people have 2 homes: one for living and one for pictures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see pictures all the time of people with these beautiful 4000+ sq ft homes with immaculate decorations, furniture, etc and wonder how the hell they keep their homes looking like that with kids and pets.

I have a 2600 sq ft home, 3 kids and a dog and my house is clean and organized but you can definitely tell they live there. Kid stuff is always found somewhere (hair ties from the girls, piece of paper on the counter from drawing, a random Lego) and then there are dog blankets on the couch in the sunroom where the dog likes to sleep plus dog toys and a crate for her to sleep in.

Do I just have to suck it up until I am an empty nester before I too can have one of those houses?

Most of these people have 2 homes: one for living and one for pictures.

+1. My friend is like this. She has 3 homes, and she's always posting beautiful interior pics from the 2 houses she's rarely in. The house she and her family are actually in? She never posts pics from there, lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:3 kids and 2 dogs. It takes a lot of daily clean up. We have a housecleaner every week and hired a professional organizer to get the pantry, laundry room, mudroom and closets set up with a good system I could continue. I get stressed if the house is messy so it’s a lot of effort on my part - you just have to decide if it’s worth it to you or not.

OP here - thats the thing though, its totally worth it to me! In general my house is clean. We have bi-weekly cleaners, the pantry, garage, fridge, closets are all organized and we have a good system. Its just the small random things that sit around that drives me nuts. The mail that needs to be sorted, the Amazon return that needs to go to UPS store, the kids art work that came home from school, a random rubber band from one of the kids that got left on the counter, etc. It just all adds up and to me it makes the house messy. My husband is thankfully also a neat freak but we just don't have enough time in the day to keep everything as clean and organized as we would prefer.

OP I mean this sincerely as someone who is a lot like you: This is something you need to work out in your own head. Life is way too short to be obsessing about random rubber bands on the counter.

Some people have pristine homes, but they are using a lot of time and/or resources to keep their space that way. And why? To impress others? Because they feel anxiety otherwise? These are not good things.