Depressed over messy, cluttered, ugly house!! Help? - Page 9

[ramlita]

It's an awful chicken-or-the-egg situation! It's depressing to live in a house where you have to walk around piles of junk to go about your daily life- and a clean house can become a sty so quickly when mama gets the blahhhs.

When I clean my house and purge it out, I feel a lot better. The key for me seems to be keeping the momentum going.

[Vixenmama]

just chiming in to say that...

whoever mentioned picking up the house every couple of hours or so (several pages back) is on to something. For the past few days I've been doing this and it works wonders. Especially with the toys.

[ollineeba]

Wondering how the OP is doing?

[Em T]

Someone asked about how to start organizing. Here is a technique I've used.

Clean off the biggest space in a room. Make the bed & use that in the bedroom.
Start with all the stuff that's out already piled on dresser, stacks in the corner, whatever. Sort things into groups of like with like Get a couple of boxes to put books & magazines in, a basket for mail that's migrated in there. Do the same with clothes, shirts, pants, etc. Then just go through it one thing at a time & immediately pitch out things you've not worn or used in ages. If they're ratty throw them out directly, otherwise fill a bag for Goodwill or other charity donation. When the bag is full go put it in your car or send a message to FreeCycle & put it by the front door for someone to pick it up. Just plow through it & don't worry about deep cleaning till you've managed to create some semblance of serenity.

Oh, & one thing I noticed about myself. When I went to clean I would do the foyer & living room because it's usually tidy already & just needs dusting & floors cleaned, or else I'd do the bathroom which is a fast clean. Finally it dawned on me that the bedroom NEVER got my first attention so it needed to be on top of the list regularly, not left till I was too tired to tackle it. So sometimes switching your regular routine helps. Also useful as a place to start if you're stuck for a place to start is Flylady's 5 things each morning 5 things each night before you go to bed.

I'm still working on decluttering little by little.

[marieangela]

Thanks for the tips Em T. I posted on this thread a while back. I'm still overwhelmed and never really got going on decluttering my house. I've really been feeling the need to tackle my bedroom and will be trying your technique. I feel like I have a hard time separating the problem areas into doable tasks and I just look at it as one big mess and don't know where to start.

[Em T]

Another useful technique I use not 100% of the time but am always grateful when I remember is: maintain. In other words, with a bad habit of dumping all sorts of things on the bedroom dresser top, once it was finally cleared off, have made a point NOT to set anything down there for "just a minute". Also am trying hard to clear off the kitchen table before I leave the house during the week. I sell on ebay & use that surface to wrap books & open mail which are the real culprits, dishes go directly to the sink & aren't a problem. Before, when that wasn't done I'd go out to run errands, come back & dump more stuff on it & the mess expanded expotentially. Forcing myself to pick up excess mailers, put the scissors, tape away, pitch the label scraps & remove magazines the whole room looks better. I think it's that one broken window theory Cheryl Mendelson talks about in Home Comforts.

[Bestbirths]

I don't know about the OP, but since reading this thread, my house seems more cluttered and depressing. Not to say that I didn't find this thread extremely helpful. I have made some progress. We just sold $400 worth of items at a garage sale, then donated everything that was left over. I cleaned out and organized our entire garage. Only to have a customer fill it with ebay items for me to sell for them. But with the new postage rates, I don't know how that is going to work out. Whatever is left they will let me have half if I have a garage sale for them.

Part of my problem is two chronically ill children, a chronically ill husband, my mom who has a torn ligament in her knee, a teenager who is worn out from helping and just needs some me time, and small unschooled children who play play play and mess mess mess. Our whole house was torn apart for remodeling that came to a standstill a year and a half ago after of dh's surgery. I am coming to terms that dh is just not able to do the things he used to do. He laid some used carpet and padding that was given to us yesterday and I swear he was going to die! Then, finding out that a big toxic intermodal railyard is going to be built by our house has taken the heart out of fixing up our house anymore for all of us. Then there was the basement flooding last year. Our youngest child is really sick, sometimes taking lots of time and attention from everyone. There's just no wind left in the sail so it's like to get anything done is like using a paddle in a raft in the ocean. I just put out on craigslist a bunch of services like doula service, cooking, petsitting,or selling items for people on ebay and a list of all of the items that I have for trade in exchange for all of the home maintanance finishing of some of these projects that have become too much for dh. I organized the closets the day before yesterday. I might have to read this thread again to get motivated so I will stay subscribed! Today the plan is to lay more carpet..so we are taking things out of rooms and let me tell you...things are MORE unorganized because of that...thinking positively this upheaval is temporary. I have an area in the dining room reserved for items that we will garage sale again or donate so as we go through these rooms we can declutter.

[pranamama]

I am going to go file some things before noon today! I also like the feng shui approach I saw for messes in a book, put your clutter in a wheelbarrow, or shine a light on it.

[Em T]

Bestbirths, you surely have had a tough road to hoe all right. Is there any possibility of getting a good friend or two over to help? People really are often very happy to lend a hand, especially to those they care for who are having such a rough patch.

[Bestbirths]

Nah, I won't ask for help. DS sister offered to give us her vacation money and we were like "no way", she has been saving for that for over a year for that. My entire life has been a rough patch and I am tired of being the one having the rough patch and want to stand on my own. My daughter applied for a dream trip through the dream factory and just knowing that we are all going to disneyworld this summer is getting me more motivated to declutter and certainly less depressed. I thought of asking for help and we belong to an intentional community where you can ask each other for help, but I am going to barter on craigs list for as many things as we can first and see how that goes.

I didn't mean to sound so doom and gloom.

Today I went through the children's clothes and I have enough of a huge pile of things that don't fit to have the beginnings of another garage sale. The first garage sale I only went through the upstairs. Now I am going through the downstairs. I make a garage sale pile in the dining room.

[wendygrace]

Bestbirths, I understand where you are coming from. I also have an ill child, our son, 4, just made a make a wish trip and we are going to disneyworld as well this summer. We did, however, ask for help from our community. They were practically begging for someone to help during my dh's "mens group" (group of men that meet on Saturdays to help people out in the community) and dh got the nerve up and said "well, we could use your help". We asked them to help us paint our walls. It has ballooned into them helping us remodel our house, including new floors (replacing the carpet) which will be done while we are away on our trip. You know a sure fire way to get you cleaning/decluttering? Have a bunch of people be recruited to help you clean and declutter! LOL Yesterday I had a team that was going to come help me "pick up things off the floor" (we had books that pretty close to literally covered the floor). When they got here, they were actually able to help me deep clean because I had finally gotten off my butt and cleaned up. My house is finally (except for the carpet) company presentable. Not perfect, but now that I have things respectable I am doing Motivated Mom to help keep up. I feel so much better and lighter and I still have the support of our community behind me to help. That's what communities are for, right?

[Bestbirths]

Someone responded to my craigslist and they are on the way over to my house right now to trade some of my stuff for finishing laying the carpet and installing hardwood flooring in my bedroom! Woo Hoo!

[wendygrace]

That's awesome bestbirths! Way to go!!

[Bestbirths]

Our intentional community group is also begging for people to help there are a bunch of young, strong single guys that just are so eager to help someone, but if I ask them to help us.....they have no idea what they are getting into....it might be more than they are bargaining for...the offer to help fix a few things would snowball like what happened to you. For example....none of our toilets flush right...they have to be plunged every other time just to flush. I called a plumber and he snaked it but it didn't help. It sounds like an expensive problem, they said the next step was to take a camera through to the main line... I have visions of us renting a porta potty out back like in the good ole days. That is just one thing...I might ask the intentional community for help...let me ask dh about it and see how he feels.

The guy who contacted me from craigslist is going to lay the hardwood flooring in my house just came over. We made a barter for a projector screen and some speakers we have...so there is one thing down on the overwhelming list of things to do. He is going to have his friend who lays carpet contact me. I feel like I am really getting things done!

[Bestbirths]

wendygrace,

when are you going on your wishtrip? We might be going in september. We are staying at Give Kids the World. Are you staying there too? Have you seen the website for GKTW? It is going to be awesome, the place is magical! We have been looking on the website and I have been reading about it to dd and we are all looking forward to it.

shelly

[wendygrace]

That's awesome bestbirths about the guy doing your hardwood floor. I also understand about that snowballing. It was so cool but we asked for that one thing and they took the lead to do all the other things. They are actually doing a fundraiser and getting sponsors. Its nuts but we just couldn't do it ourselves. Good luck to you and you should be proud of all you are doing yourself.

[wendygrace]

We are going for ds' fifth bday at the end of June. We have ressies for the end of the trip and on the waitlist for the beginning for GKTW. I've heard that people don't want to leave GKTW to go to Disneyworld. We are so excited!

[momazon4]

:

I'm not sure if my house is gross because I'm depressed or if I'm depressed because my house is gross...

Off to START!

[scrapadoozer]

Amazing thread....subscribing.

[Em T]

Bestbirths, what a brilliant idea to barter unused items for home repair & stuff like that. I'm very impressed at your ingenius solution.

Wendygrace, good for your husband speaking up & all the great things happening at your house too!