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.

Haha well I did have to do some decluttering to come up with my magical shelf. But point taken- we do have more than 1500SF, and it’s a double coat closet with 2 shelves above the hanging bar. The top shelf houses “pending items.”

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.

Not OP but thank you for this idea! Never occurred to me but I’m going to put a basket in my coat closet for this purpose. Only wrinkle is not forgetting about the returns due to the ‘out of sight/out of mind’ phenomenon.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

That’s not ADHD. The clutter bothers me too, but staying on top of it is too overwhelming. My husband is the same.

I have ADHD inattentive (diagnosed as a teen) and so does one of my kids. I learned early on if I didn't stay on top of mental and physical clutter I would be miserable in life, so we rely on systems and clutter management. Our large home is well-decorated, clean, and organized 99% of the time with two older elementary schoolers, parents who WFH only part of the time, two dogs, and minimal outsourcing. It helps that one of my big interests is home design, and so I spend some of my free time checking out designers and organizers whose work inspires me, pinning inspiration to Pinterest, and saving posts on Instagram to apply to our own space. I regularly take a look at what we have and any new purchases we're considering and if they don't fill a need or fit the design of our home, it doesn't stay in the house or come in. I block off time to devote to this so it doesn't feel burdensome or scattershot.

I recommend the book "Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD" to help you think through why your current process might not be working to stay on top of things. My only disagreement with the author's solutions is her assertion that you can't focus on making them aesthetically pleasing. I think you can strike a balance. But lots of aha moments as to why popular cleaning and organizing solutions don't work for the ADHD brain.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You stay on top of it. I have three kids and a dog and I work and I don’t have help beyond cleaners once every 3 weeks but I do have 7000 square feet. That definitely helps. Other than that, rules. No toys on the main floor, no eating other than at the table. Sweep/wipe up each morning. Make beds, wipe rooms, put stuff away before bed. Don’t let there be extra crap around. Throw it away, give it away, take it away.

No toys on the main floor? How weird that the people who live in the home can’t enjoy it.

I just posted above that we live in a 10,000sf house. We have minimal toys on the main floor as well. My youngest is 6. Oldest is now in high school.

My kids’ rooms are full of toys and we have a 5000sf basement that is full of toys.

Anonymous wrote:I don’t have a dog but I do have 3 kids and a 10,000sf house. My kids’ rooms are definitely lived in and not always immaculate except when the cleaners leave. We have weekly cleaners. When we have guests, we tidy up our common areas.

My kids know that when they have play dates, they clean before and after.

Me again. We used an interior decorator to put out home together. People usually say we have a beautiful home. It is probably magazine worthy. Before we used the designer, it was clean but not as well put together.

I don’t have a dog but I do have 3 kids and a 10,000sf house. My kids’ rooms are definitely lived in and not always immaculate except when the cleaners leave. We have weekly cleaners. When we have guests, we tidy up our common areas.

My kids know that when they have play dates, they clean before and after.

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?

My sister lives like this. Her life looks like a magazine. She is also a photographer. She has 2 pets, but they are usually crated. She just brings them out sometimes. I know they are not millionaires, and I don't really understand what they are doing to afford it all. No housecleaner that I know about, but they are 100% (her spouse too) focused on the way things look. I've never even seen a toy around the main living areas of their house. I will note that the furniture is not comfortable and just looks good in pictures. I don't envy them at all and won't reveal details here, but things are not as they seem. I think people that live like this are trying to hide something.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You stay on top of it. I have three kids and a dog and I work and I don’t have help beyond cleaners once every 3 weeks but I do have 7000 square feet. That definitely helps. Other than that, rules. No toys on the main floor, no eating other than at the table. Sweep/wipe up each morning. Make beds, wipe rooms, put stuff away before bed. Don’t let there be extra crap around. Throw it away, give it away, take it away.

No toys on the main floor? How weird that the people who live in the home can’t enjoy it.

My sister is like this. Her house is full of rules and her kids are little robots.

Anonymous wrote:You stay on top of it. I have three kids and a dog and I work and I don’t have help beyond cleaners once every 3 weeks but I do have 7000 square feet. That definitely helps. Other than that, rules. No toys on the main floor, no eating other than at the table. Sweep/wipe up each morning. Make beds, wipe rooms, put stuff away before bed. Don’t let there be extra crap around. Throw it away, give it away, take it away.

No toys on the main floor? How weird that the people who live in the home can’t enjoy it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You stay on top of it. I have three kids and a dog and I work and I don’t have help beyond cleaners once every 3 weeks but I do have 7000 square feet. That definitely helps. Other than that, rules. No toys on the main floor, no eating other than at the table. Sweep/wipe up each morning. Make beds, wipe rooms, put stuff away before bed. Don’t let there be extra crap around. Throw it away, give it away, take it away.

7000!!!

That's a very large house. How many kids and adults? We have 1 kid and 2 adults in 1,000 sq ft condo, so I'm trying to imagine what its like to be so spread out!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

The love takes up very little space. It all fits in one King size bed.

The rest of it is stuff.

Anonymous wrote:You stay on top of it. I have three kids and a dog and I work and I don’t have help beyond cleaners once every 3 weeks but I do have 7000 square feet. That definitely helps. Other than that, rules. No toys on the main floor, no eating other than at the table. Sweep/wipe up each morning. Make beds, wipe rooms, put stuff away before bed. Don’t let there be extra crap around. Throw it away, give it away, take it away.

7000!!!

You stay on top of it. I have three kids and a dog and I work and I don’t have help beyond cleaners once every 3 weeks but I do have 7000 square feet. That definitely helps. Other than that, rules. No toys on the main floor, no eating other than at the table. Sweep/wipe up each morning. Make beds, wipe rooms, put stuff away before bed. Don’t let there be extra crap around. Throw it away, give it away, take it away.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

My kids stuff is also limited mostly too their room, and sometimes spills over into the family room/dining area. There are other rooms that always stay clean because they kids don't ever bring anything in there -- our offices, the living room, our bedroom. Our house is very modestly sized (2300 sqft) but I would say more than half the house always looks nice, and the kids rooms are chaos.

Anonymous wrote: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.

The love takes up very little space. It all fits in one King size bed.

The rest of it is stuff.