Anonymous wrote:I’m in the 1500 sq ft club and love the idea of a house big enough that storage baskets aren’t a trip hazards and extra visual clutter and that you have a magical closet with an empty shelf. We have 4 closets. The only one downstairs is single door width and where all coats, boots, dog supplies, tennis stuff, bubble wrap/packaging, picnic blankets, coolers and backpacks, mittens and hats go.

I don’t think I could squeeze a single package to be returned in there. I prefer to stack them into a little wall near the front door in the outline of my pretend fantasy mudroom.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I can offer a solution for your returns. I have a dedicated shelf in a main level closet for returns, boxes I haven’t opened yet, donations, etc. I realized I needed one empty shelf to house things that were on their way IN or OUT of our house, but needed a place in the meantime.

I have this too! There is an empty shelf in our coat closet just for unopened packages/pending returns/bags to be taken to goodwill. And I don’t have a big house (no garage or mud room). We’ve just learned to keep our coats and boots somewhat minimal so our entry closet can serve as a staging area for life stuff.

Anonymous wrote:Our house was pretty uncluttered on the main level because the kids played in the basement. I probably have ADHD and clutter makes me distracted and irritated in my environment.

What do you mean about not seeing chargers? We have them in drawers next to outlets and one behind the couch.

Schumacher fabric isn't $400/yard for designers.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I can offer a solution for your returns. I have a dedicated shelf in a main level closet for returns, boxes I haven’t opened yet, donations, etc. I realized I needed one empty shelf to house things that were on their way IN or OUT of our house, but needed a place in the meantime.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bunny Williams social media is great inspiration for this!

She doesn’t have kids (or they’re grown, idk) but she has dogs and dog beds and dogs on sofas and such. When she has a couch upholstered, she has quilted blankets made in the same fabric that she puts on for the dogs and can whisk away for guests.

The other thing is making everything washable and having good tools for cleaning. If you have a dog, you have to be better at cleaning than non dog people. Get to know fabric types, a Bissell, oxiclean and nature’s miracle.

I think big fancy houses with dogs also often have a “dog room,” sometimes a mud room, where the dog hangs out a lot of the time. Any house that big is going to have formal and informal, “back of house” spaces. That goes a long way towards keeping the formal spaces clean.

Lol. Only bunny Williams could afford to use Schumacher at $400 a square foot for her dogs to lounge on !

Well of course but the concept is good. I actually bought her quilted dog blanket from Ballard and it is perfect.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bunny Williams social media is great inspiration for this!

She doesn’t have kids (or they’re grown, idk) but she has dogs and dog beds and dogs on sofas and such. When she has a couch upholstered, she has quilted blankets made in the same fabric that she puts on for the dogs and can whisk away for guests.

The other thing is making everything washable and having good tools for cleaning. If you have a dog, you have to be better at cleaning than non dog people. Get to know fabric types, a Bissell, oxiclean and nature’s miracle.

I think big fancy houses with dogs also often have a “dog room,” sometimes a mud room, where the dog hangs out a lot of the time. Any house that big is going to have formal and informal, “back of house” spaces. That goes a long way towards keeping the formal spaces clean.

Lol. Only bunny Williams could afford to use Schumacher at $400 a square foot for her dogs to lounge on !

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend like that. It’s totally personality and just spending a ton of time cleaning. She is ruthless about getting rid of stuff and her kids didn’t have a ton of toys.
I can’t live that way!

I have a friend like this too.

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend like that. It’s totally personality and just spending a ton of time cleaning. She is ruthless about getting rid of stuff and her kids didn’t have a ton of toys.
I can’t live that way!