Reply to Organizing and cleaning an insanely disorganized house

Forum Index » Home Improvement, Design, and Decorating

Reply to "Organizing and cleaning an insanely disorganized house"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I threw it all away, except for 3 mitts, one of which I cleaned. I also tackled another large cabinet that was full of expired dried goods. I’m very comfortable throwing stuff away in the kitchen because there’s nothing sentimental about anything, except perhaps some cute coffee mugs. I’m thinking it’s a great place to focus my attention this week because hauling trash bags out of the kitchen gives me visual progress and there are a lot of pretty basic pantry organization supplies that will probably make a big difference. My current plan is to aggressively tackle one area of the house per week for four weeks and then hire someone for a deep clean, recognizing that that is the beginning of the process, not the end.

One thing that I’m coming to terms with is that if I don’t deal with this, nobody will, even though the majority of the clutter was brought in by and/or for my husband and kids.[/quote]

OP that is amazing!! You are definitely going to be successful.

I really like the Kondo process of piling a category, sorting, and then making a home for everything. I thought the categories worked pretty well for me. But since you have the psychological strength/skill, you can probably apply any of the popular methods. Kondo, decluttering at the speed of life, whatever you like. Or just go at it room by room.

Re: your DH. My DH is not an issue but my mother is. Here are my top tips:
1) build trust. Don’t lie or hide throwing away things, at least not for a long time. Trust is a huge part of it. Once they trust you to help them it’s easier. 
2) embrace “deep storage” that is effectively trash. For me and my mom this is totes in the garage. Realistically, neither she nor anyone else will ever go looking for the things in the totes. It’s just a compromise for when something should be exited from the house but she can’t let go.
3) label the totes and any kind of boxes with EVERYTHING in there. Like, “extra screwdrivers, box of nails, tax returns from 10 years ago, Christmas card envelopes.” “Three extra pillowcases, twin blanket.” If it just says “miscellaneous” or “bedding” you’re leaving a hard task for your future self. Since all the deep storage is labeled like this at my mom’s now, it will be much faster and easier to go through it later. By which I mean toss it. But it would also be easier for her to find the Christmas card envelopes she will never go looking for if she hypothetically did. [/quote]

PS - before I implemented this system, she would sometimes make a Doom Box of random crap and label it with HER OWN NAME, then put it in HER OWN garage. You can see why I went to the “label the box with every item” system. I really believe in it. [/quote]

This makes a lot of sense. Kudos, pp. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics