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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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

[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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