Patrick shakes his head at me but over the past couple of years I’ve become a clean freak. I use to not care. I really really really …. I don’t think you understand when I say really….. struggled with keeping a clean house.

I’ll even show you some old pictures that seriously make me cringe…..

In our old home…

Granted, this was right after a huge trip to ikea to completely redo the room… but still….

So cluttered….

Even in our new home… the now playroom stayed extremely cluttered and unusable.

Piles upon piles….

Only a few close friends ever really saw how bad it was when we lived in our old home. Between getting married and moving in together, things never got purged, everything just kind of ended up in a spot and being organized was an extremely foreign concept.

When we moved into our home a couple of years ago, we started the purging process. I learned a few things that have helped me keep my house clean.

1. If it doesn’t have a place to go, it ends up being clutter.

If I don’t have an exact spot to put something in, it ends up just floating around because it has no where to go. I have found one of the most important things for me keeping my house clean is to make sure everything has a spot. That way it’s super easy to clean. I just pick it up, put it where it needs to go instead of searching for somewhere to put it… shove it…. hide it. You know that feeling right?

No spot, something else has to go. No more piles upon piles.

2. Less is more. 

I’m finding this one out right now. Especially with B’s toys. I was looking at his playroom and it was starting to look cluttered. I was watching a clip on the Today show this past week about a mom who got rid of all of her sons toys except for 14 of them. If she brings a new toy in, she gets rid of an old one. One thing that really stuck with me was when she said, “Everyone needs a Thomas the train but you don’t need ALL different types of them. You don’t need birthday Thomas and Christmas Thomas and XYZ Thomas.”

I just applied that to B’s puzzles. I love Puzzles. He loves puzzles but I had puzzles in his playroom that weren’t age appropriate. SO, out they went and into his closet until he’s old enough to enjoy them. I left 5 puzzles in his playroom which are all age appropriate.

Also, think about this. If you walk into your office and there is junk everywhere, it will be hard to find things. Same thing applies to his playroom. I want to eliminate the “oh my gosh there are a million things in here” syndrome so that he can really see what he has. We only have two small toy bins. Everything else is on display. It makes it so he’s not dumping everything which creates a huge mess.

3. Maintaining is a lot easier than doing a massive cleaning overhaul.

I clean up everything every single night. The playroom goes back to order, the living room goes back to order, the dishes are all put away and the kitchen is clean.

Is it exhausting at times? Yes. Is it monotonous? Yes. Is it worth all the work? Absolutely.

I get stressed out when there is stuff everywhere. I can’t sit down for the night and relax if I know there is stuff to be done. Going to bed knowing that most everything is done and ready for a new day helps keep my stress down. I don’t feel overwhelmed thinking, “Oh no. It would seriously take me all day to clean everything”.

I tell Patrick that I like to live in a 30 minutes to surprise company mode. If someone called me and said, “hey, I’m stopping by in 30 minutes”, I would want to be able to have my entire house in company ready order in 30 minutes. So that typically means putting away a few dishes, picking up a few toys, taking a few things up stairs etc.

It’s a lot easier to put in 30 minutes of cleaning every night (along with the usual pick up as we go) during the day, than to spend an entire day trying to clean everything.

4. It’s a happier environment. 

I’ve lived in clutter. I’ve been drowning in a messy house before… It’s not fun. It’s stressful. It’s embarrassing at times.

Now that we are on the opposite side of that, it’s an all around happier environment. I don’t find myself getting stressed out thinking about the insane amount of work that needs to be done. There is something about a clean and organized home that is relaxing, refreshing and overall happier.

I’m at home a lot. I work from home, I am a full time stay at home mom. I want my home to be relaxing, welcoming, clean and organized. There are enough things in my life that I can worry about or get stressed about, I don’t need the space I live in to contribute to any of that.

5. It’s never ending… and you just have to accept that. 

There won’t be a single day until my kids are grown and gone, that I won’t have to work on trying to keep my house clean. There’s a meme floating around about trying to keep with a toddler is like brushing your teeth while eating oreo’s. It’s so true! It’s crazy how many times I pick up toys…. but if I don’t do it, things start to pile up… and I start to drown and it just becomes harder to get everything put away. I will be cleaning my home everyday for the next 30 years…. and I just have to accept that.

I can’t explain what happened that made me change over the years. One huge factor was when I was nesting while pregnant with B. I threw a lot out and an intense desire to organize everything overcame me. I know that whenever we have another baby, there will be new challenges in keeping my house clean but hopefully I’ll continue to still apply these tips so I don’t start drowning (again).

Helping with our nightly clean up. ❤

Have any cleaning tips for me? I would love to hear them!