Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Messy Mittwoch: A clean house does not a home create

Have you seen our study lately?  Here's a shot, taken on the 16th of January, when I was in the midst of packing in preparation for my in-laws to visit:


Terrible, aint it?  I can assure you it was way neater after I was done (you should see the huge pile of papers/magazines I cleared), but then I think the study still has a long way to go before reaching the ideal cozy, clean room that it should be.  Same goes for most of the house I guess, but more so for this room since it tends to be the dumping ground for stuff in general. :p  Doesn't help that my scrap/craft stuff keeps accumulating there too!

I've been rather inspired by the clean-ups going over at "Project Simplify" over at Simple Mom, however, I think its rather tough to follow through with the weekly clean-ups, not with all that we already have to accomplish each day.  Its so tempting to plunge in and go into a major purging session everyday, but I'm also reminded that while I want the house to be beautiful, clean does not equate to comfortable (this I totally know, since my mum was a fastidious cleaner.  She insisted on having those stiff antique Chinese wooden chairs in the living room, as they were easier to clean than sofas.  No one sat in them, except when we had the occasional guest, and the living room became more or less "dead", or just a place to sit on the floor and veg out in front of the TV)... and I'd rather have love in the home than sparkling windows .  Last week, there also came this reminder that "homemaking is making a home, not about making perfection".  :)

So for the next few months, I thought I'd be simple with regards to de-cluttering (No clutter diet for me, thank you very much).  We do need to clear loads of stuff since most of what we have needs to be in storage when we move to Germany next year, and I can't imagine having to store all 6 (and more) full Billy bookshelves stuffed with books, and a cupboard chockfull of craft stuff... However I probably can only spare about 1/2 an hour a day just working on this, since there's the usual housework, cooking, cuddling and storybook reading that needs to be done.  The plan would be to use 20 minutes a day, either to target an area in the house, or to clear/pack/repair 20 items in the house.  Hopefully this works out, meanwhile, you'd probably have to endure me rambling about this for the next few weeks!

So... have you been de-cluttering or making improvements to your home lately?  What are your tips for making a house a home?

PS: If you're wondering, Mittwoch = Wednesday in German.  I ended up using the term so that I could get my alliterations (sorry, am rather obsessed by that)!

4 comments:

  1. Oh I totally agree that homemaking is making a home, not about perfection! We too are doing a fair amount of decluttering.

    One tip I learnt from a website sometime back which works for me: When walking out of one room to another, take a quick glance around and pick up what should belong to the room you are going to. Eg. if I am walking from the living room to the kitchen, and I see a cup lying around, I'll consciously pick it up to take along with me. I found doing this little bit really helps!

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  2. Oh gawd! I share your sentiments, Mama J. Seriously, there are so many things "better" to be done (eg: playing with baby, cuddling and even blogging) than housework, yeah? Lol...I have also been spending more time with trying to keep up my pace as a domestic housewife since my MIL had just op on her cataract. I'm also bugged by the constant untidiness that goes around in my room. Seems like things just get more with kids, huh? Anyway, you are not alone!

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  3. Re. decluttering, we did plenty of that too!

    For our new home we got rid of the storeroom and didn't build ourselves a whole lot of storage aside from the usual floor-to-ceiling bedroom cupboards -- that's really keeping us in check right now.

    We thought we did good moving in with only 10 boxes of stuff, but we still manage to thrash and recycle a ton of stuff after moving in!

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  4. Corsage: That's a great tip, thanks for sharing! Will bear that in mind when I potter around the house!

    Yvonne: Hope your MIL has recovered from the op? Guess the housework will always be there, but the children do grow up... thanks for the encouragement! :)

    Evelyn: Wow, no storeroom, and 10 boxes! Amazing! I'll be happy if I can fit the stuff in my study in 10 boxes! Any tips on decluttering fast?

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