We doubled our square footage and now I have lots of extra closet, cabinet, and built-in space to shove stuff into before people come over. So it looks picked up and put-together, but don't open any doors...

I have a lab. It’s impossible.

What is a great 6?

I have a pt housekeeper (4-5 hrs a day) 5x a week.

Pristine.

And a great 6. And a great closet organizer.

Anonymous wrote:Also I have never been in a house with a big dog that doesn’t smell like dog, no matter what the house looks like.

Eh, I have two. They are doodles and don’t shed and don’t smell. Really.

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.

Also I have never been in a house with a big dog that doesn’t smell like dog, no matter what the house looks like.

Most people I know who live like that have pretty intense clean freak/ocd tendencies and expend a ton of time/money/mental energy to live that way at the expense of other things. A close friend of mine will admit that her compulsion to have a perfect house negatively affects her marriage and her kids.

Anonymous wrote:We have a few kid books downstairs but otherwise all kid toys are upstairs in their rooms and the playroom. Their backpacks and lunch bags are hung in the mud room. The bulk of the dog’s toys are in our room. If she brings one down we bring it up at the end of the day.

So are they only allowed to play in their rooms and playroom?

My kids play all over the house. Yes of course we clean it up but inevitably something gets left out.

I had one of those type of people visit my house once and she asked for a tour. I have a larger home and we had just moved in about a year earlier. She was very sweet and said something like your house is so lived in -- it was meant as a compliment and I took it that way. She just never could get comfortable to allow her house to not be perfect and she envied that I could be more relaxed.

We have a few kid books downstairs but otherwise all kid toys are upstairs in their rooms and the playroom. Their backpacks and lunch bags are hung in the mud room. The bulk of the dog’s toys are in our room. If she brings one down we bring it up at the end of the day.

All of the above!!! Plus the willingness to spend money on those things.
I prefer to build my savings.

They have millions of dollars and multiple full-time house staff. Gardener, arborist, interior designers, manager, driver, travel concierge, tutors, nannied, cleaning team, chef, person who prepares and cleans and serves at parties, etc etc. So unless you think you’ll eventually be making millions a year, probably not.

Cleaners, psycho clean parents, rooms that don't get used and are just for pictures, selective picture posting.

Eh, I'm sure your home is lovely and filled with love, and lots of stuff, but mostly love.

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?