Try these quick and easy tips to keep your home clean and organized! These are just a few simple ideas, but you’ll be surprised what a difference they make!
7 Tips To Keep Your Home Clean And Organized
I’ve been thinking about some other ways that we keep the house going with me being sick. Here are couple of things that can be used even if you’re not sick.
- Let the kids drink water for most of the day. They don’t need Kool-aid, milk or juice every time they are thirsty. When they do have it, it must be consumed at the table or outside. You won’t have Kool-aid stains all over the place and you won’t be frantically trying to clean it up.
- To keep the house clean. Allow food to be eaten only at the table or outside. There’s no reason to be dragging food all over the house and cleaning up after it.
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3. Don’t buy beige carpet. I think beige carpet is from Satan! I don’t know any home with small kids would have it. You know that the builders of these new homes for the family aren’t the ones cleaning the carpets!! LOL
It is such a pain to clean and it always looks dirty. If you have small kids and are getting new carpet don’t buy beige. Don’t get really dark carpet either. It will show every little piece of lint and dirt. Look at places like church, doctor’s offices, schools etc. and see what color they have. These high traffic areas are great to get color choices that won’t show dirt.
- Stop nagging the kids. Make their lives easier. Keep only the blankets they really need on their beds. Give them one comforter on top of their bed sheet so that making it will be easy. They don’t need a sheet and several blankets. For mom and dad use a sheet, blanket and comforter. That’s it.
- Get organized.Get a basket for them to put their shoes in. They can’t find them in the closet, won’t put them on the rack or in a shoe bag. We have a wicker basket sitting by our stairs and everyone’s shoes go in there. They know where they are and they are easy to get out. Every month or two I go in and sort out the ones that don’t need to be in there like dress shoes or slippers. We use this mostly for shoes worn everyday.
- Get rid of dressers and put their clothes on shelves. They never close the drawers and can’t see what is in there. Put shelves up either in the closet or cubbies along the wall for their clothes. They can see at a glance what they have.
- Take the closet doors down in their rooms. Put up an easy to close curtain or just leave it open. While they are little, this will make it much easier for them to handle. My kids don’t have any doors on their closets.
Those are few organizing and cleaning tips to make life easier.
Tawra
Amen about the beige carpet. We rent our home, which is wall-to-wall beige carpet. We have a four-year-old, a three-year-old, and a two-year-old and I spend 3/4 of my day trying to protect the landlord’s precious carpet (to no avail, btw, it still looks awful)…I will need to get it steam cleaned before I would feel comfortable about the landlord seeing it–ack !! What a hassle. Our kids drink only water, but the dirt and grime show up in other ways. Please lord, let our next house have hardwood floors!
P.S. I couldn’t help but notice that the carpet in the above picture with the two twin beds has beige carpet. I am jealous that you have managed to keep it spotless!
Alicia, first that picture isn’t a picture of Tawra’s house so don’t feel bad. She had nightmares about keeping her beige carpet clean too. She now has hardwood floors and find them almost as bad or even worse then the beige carpet. I know before everyone hollers at me many of you love your hardwood floors and I am just telling our experiences.
I have had all of the above myself over the years. Hardwoods have to be vacuumed, then mopped and unless you buy a special steam cleaner or something they always look streaked or you can see footprints that are tracked in. If you live in a housing area with grass and sidewalks and walk only from the car to the garage they may work for you but anything else they are a mess.
Then there is the scratching of them. We spend most of our time worrying does all the furniture have felt pads, what a mess when a felt pad comes off and we don’t know it, the kids scrape toys along the floor, the vacuum accidentally gets something caught on it and can leave huge scratches. Then if the dog bowl spills or water spills and you don’t see, it completely ruins the floor. Even the new “fake” hardwood floor scratches like crazy. I think it is even worse.
We have spent just as much time worrying over our hardware floors as we did our carpet. So what is the answer? There are a couple of things you might want to do. You could do both with some cautions. My favorite have been carpets which are speckled with lots of specs of neutral color. These show very little dirt. My daughter-in-law went from hardwood floors just recently to this type of carpet and she loves it. A quick vacuum and she is done.
Another thing you can try, is they have come a long way in vinyl floors and have some which look like wood – not cheesy at all. I know to some vinyl is a dirty word but I am seeing more and more decorators using it and really liking it. I have to laugh too because some floor snobs would say there is no comparison but most people have to look twice to see if it is wood or vinyl.
Another thing with wood is noise factor which some don’t think about. It is much noisier when people walk across hardwood, furniture moving or things dropping on it even the slight echoing which happens. I personally worry about the kids falling on hardwood. They can get hurt worse falling on it over carpet.
I know allergies can be a factor in some cases of course but to be honest my kids and their families have awful allergies and so far when they have lived in homes with hardwood or carpet they have been no worse or better. I think part of helping with allergies is keeping things clean – vacuumed and dusted whether carpet or hardwood.
You might try a combination too. Carpet the bedrooms, living room and rooms like the kitchen, baths etc. use something different.
Also be careful in considering tile. Just because the decorators say you should use it and it is the “in” thing does not make it always work for “normal” families. In 10 years most of it is out dated which will happen, it will be expensive to replace, if it cracks or chips it is expensive to fix and then you have to deal with grout etc.
They all have their draw backs the thing is to get what will show dirt the least, is the easiest to clean, and the least expensive to replace.
Jill
Hi Jill: one more thing about tile. Heaven forbid if you drop a dish or glass on it, even Corelle will shatter on that stuff! also, tile floors can be so cold, and slippery as well.!
donna b
I had beige carpets from hell. They got dirty quickly and they were cheap apartment wall to wall carpets, in the house that we bought. The best day of my cleaning life happened when we replaced the whole downstairs carpet with “luxury vinyl tile” It looks
like hardwood but you can’t scratch or damage it unless you use a knife or a hatchet. Also, pet stains are not permanent. I vacuum it mostly, and mop when necessary. When I first got it, I just walked around marveling at it. It’s better than pergo, and you can get it with a pad underneath that makes it comfortable. I didn’t need a mat on the floor beneath my sink any more! It was used industrially first, in hospitals and other large buildings.
I wanted to add that this flooring is also quiet compared to hardwood, and I haven’t noticed that my house is any colder either.
We have something similar and love it, vinyl as well.
We have rented in both carpeted and hard wood floored homes. We currently have hard wood floors and are chomping at the bit to get out of here! We are moving in three weeks and I am counting down the days until wall-to-wall carpeting. It is LOUD. You can literally hear a pin drop from across the house. My husband works from home and I stay home with our three young kids, and I am constantly shushing them so that daddy’s work isn’t disturbed. And to make it fun, he got vestibular vertigo so even normal things like dishes clinking together make him want to fall over, and in a trendy “open floor plan” home, the only places he can escape the brunt of the noise are either his office or the bedroom, so I am the one with the kids 99% of the time. Granted, our case is extreme, and I love the look of hard wood floors, but they are best left in home decorating magazines :)
Keep a large water jug with pouring spout and a bowl covered with fruit and veggies in it along with ice cubes to keep it cool.
Leave it on a picnic table in the backyard so anyone can get a drink or a snack without entering the house. Keeping the doors closed not only saves cleaning inside but it keeps out flies and biting insects.
tawra! … you are soooo funny… beige carpet from satan! … hehehhee… one time we rented a house with white *yes i kid you not! white as snow carpet in a rental house!*… i asked the landlord why did they put in white carpet in a rental house? and he replied his wife wanted that … i told him if i owned a rental house i wouldnt have any carpeting and well if i had to put down flooring then it would be the cheapest linoleum i could find… even tho i take care of the property we live, doesnt mean everyone else will… he just looked at me like i had 2 heads on my shoulders…
but light colored carpets should be against the law! … i dont care how neat and clean you are, they still get dirty…
and when we left that house, i left those carpets cleaner than when they were first put in the house… the landlord gave us back our deposit and then another $200 bc he said the carpet was so white they took it up and put it in his own house… and i had 2 small children at the time! …
yes tawra, you are soooo right, beige and white carpet are from satan … hehehehehhehehe (laughing my butt off as i am typing htis, hubby yelling in the background “rose dont forget to mention what a bear you were about us walking around in that house even in clean socks!”)…. hehhehehehe :D…
Yes, Mike was down on his hands and knees scrubbing the carpet before we sold the last house. Elly’s carpet was white and she dropped red marker on it and it stained. He took a Q-tip with bleach and go them out!! I HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE beige/white carpet!!
I found some very useful tips on this site regarding affordable ways to reorganize your budget, save money on groceries and do it yourself household ideas for season and room.
http://www.savingmoneysmarts.com/grocery_savings.html
We have white carpet right now. THAT is from satan!
When we moved here it was beautiful as the previous owner was a single woman. I have three children ages 5, 3, 1 and now it’s just a disgrace.
What are your thoughts on laminate flooring??? That’s what we are considering. Funny that you mention vinyl though because I was at HD the other day and saw a very nice “wood looking” vinyl sample and was impressed. Is vinyl easy to clean?
Jamie, I personally think it is. I have had all of the different floorings except for bamboo and cork. Besides being easier to maintain vinyl, is more forgiving (not as much shows up) and is more durable. Also other then carpet Tawra and I find it easier to stand on and doesn’t cause as much leg aching. In Tawra’s old house she had laminate and tiling in all of her house and we really had problems with hip and legs aching at the end of the day.
The only time I had a problem with vinyl was I made the mistake of putting snow white vinyl in my kitchen in which the main door everyone came in opened up on to from a dirt driveway. What was I thinking?!?!
We just recently switched from carpet to pergo flooring in the main traffic ways in our home. I understand what you are saying Jill about the pergo taking more maintenance, however, what I have found is that each step doesn’t take as long as vacuuming the whole thing and I can break it up into smaller pieces when I have 5-10 minutes here and there. The best thing about it is that I truly think I keep it cleaner than the previous carpet. So maybe this is the “plus” for me:-) You are right though, it really is a personal decision. Personally, I hate to vacuum and would rather sweep and mop any day and twice on Thursdays!!! LOL!!
Brenna it really is personal preference and your situation. For example if you always enter your house from the garage and have little mud something would work for you where someone else who is surrounded by mud may need something different. Plus whether like you said you like to mop or vacuum. They all have their draw backs and pluses.
It’s like finding a husband. They all have their little quirks. We just have to decide which ones we love and can live with. : )
Brenna,
I loved my laminate flooring in my last home…it wasn’t Pergo brand but I liked it. It looked really good for a nice price. We had it in the kitchen, living room and hallway and I loved the look of it. Also, we had a dog and I really liked being able to mop the muddy prints away, wipe up the ‘accident’ every now and then. That’s mainly why we took up the carpet and put down the laminate…and decided to do the kitchen because it was open to the living room and we wanted the continuity. The dog and the fact that the boys seemed to get a stomach virus every year and had trouble making it to the bathroom without throwing up on the carpeting and didn’t seem to be able to utilize a trash can. Lol! So after trying to get vomit smells out of carpet for several years in a row, the laminate seemed like a great decision. The only thing we did wrong in my opinion was to get the cherry finish. It was dark and showed every piece of lint, grass, dust, gray cat hair and white dog hair, etc. I had to sweep it every day, sometimes a couple of times a day to make it look really good. My sister and her hubby decided to get laminate in their living areas after they saw ours…they went with the light oak finish and while I like the darker floors, the oak shows so much less. You can’t really tell when their floor needs swept unless you put your face a few inches from it and look really hard. We ended up replacing the carpet in the boys’ room with laminate the next year and went with oak and it is a lot more low maintenance. I also loved the way the sun reflected light of the floor in their room. It was really pretty. As far as mopping, I used a swiffer with the wet floor wipes. I could get a big box of the floor wipes at Sam’s Club cheaper than anywhere else and they worked well for us. The house we live in now has the wood look vinyl in the kitchen. It doesn’t look bad and is easier to to care for. One minus for the laminate is that if it gets wet, it warps. I know this because my ex-husband overflowed the sink in our kitchen and got the floor all wet and it warped really bad. Then there really wasn’t an easy way to repair it because of the way the laminate locks together. And ours was all connected from the kitchen into the living room, so I ended up putting a rug down in front of the sink to cover the warped floor and let it go at that. The house we live in now has carpeting in the living room and it is much more forgiving. We can get by without vacuuming a few days before it starts looking really bad. It’s a darker color, so it shows lint but not mud so much. Then there is the dog…who pees on the carpet every now and then and now I’m back to cleaning up the carpet. In my head, I feel like the carpet is really never clean after that though, no matter how well I clean it. The dog threw up on the carpet last night and I hated cleaning that up. If I still had my laminate floor, I would feel it was much cleaner. Lol! We didn’t notice a difference with allergies either way though. Just like Jill, and you said, their are +/- to both and it’s mostly personal choice as to what you can live with. We are looking to relocate now to be closer to my husband’s work and will be looking for a home that we want to live in permanently. I’m not sure what we will do when we buy and possibly the flooring needs replaced. I kind of think eventually we may like to go back to laminate in the living room but probably the lighter oak finish to show less dirt.
Angie
Oh, I also forgot to add about the smearing with some laminates. The cherry finish laminate we had was the smooth, shinier look and it smeared really badly if you didn’t mop it just right and let it dry. The oak finish laminate that my sister bought and we ended up buying for the boys’s room had a rougher texter and dull finish and does not have the smearing issues.
That is true Angie. I like shiny floors and the main problem with Tawra’s laminate is it looks smeared all the time. You walk in her front door and all you can see is a dull smeared look. We have used a swilfer, mop and gotten on our hands and knees trying to carefully dry it but nothing really works. This must be a normal problem because I heard some people say the other day they used a small steamer vac on their floors and for the first time the smearing was gone. I am so tempted to get one.
I was thinking of a Haun (sp) stick steamer vac. Has anyone used one before and do you like it?
I has issues when I used that steamer on my laminate floors. I love it on tile. I wouldn’t use it. I have found the best thing is a mixture I mixed up. We have a new puppy. I have one of those resuable spray mops. I mixed up 3 tablespoons of murphy oil soap, 2 tablespoons of white vingear, 1 tablespoon lavender oil into a 2 quart bootle of water. I vaccuum really well. I have 3 mop cloths. I use the mixture and change the cloth head about a 1/3 of the way. My floors are streak free. There is nothing worse then smeared floors. I had purchased the recommended floor wash and it was expensive and my floor was wreck 24.00 for half gallon.
Jill,
Yes, the smearing with the shiny laminate can be a nightmare! The only way I could get rid of the smears was to use the swiffer wet wipes and then use a dry towel over the swiffer and go over the floor to dry and then still keep feet off of the floor for a little while longer to completely dry. No easy task!!! I have heard others say their laminate flooring is like Tawra’s though and they have not been able to get rid of the smearing. I’m thinking that must vary with different brands of the flooring or something.
It’s funny, when you have lived in different houses, you learn first hand what works and what doesn’t. In the house we live in now, the boys’ bathroom has stone-like tiles (hope you know what kind I’m talking about…it’s not like ceramic tile, more like stone but cut in tiles). Well, it apparently was properly…grouted (is that what you call it?) because there are gaps now. The boys aren’t always good about drying off completely before they get out of the shower, or staying on the rug once they are out. So the floor is getting wetter than it should and we have noticed tiles are hooving up and there is a mildew smell in the bathroom. It’s one of those issues that I hate to grumble about it to the kids because it would be so much easier to just have a vinyl, linoleum type floor in the bathroom than to try and inforce better drying off/staying on the rug. It’s a smaller bathroom so we are thinking of just going to Lowe’s and getting a cheap roll of linoleum and taking the tiles up. I think it will be so much easier. We didn’t think about it when we bought it because we hadn’t experienced tile before but looking back, why on earth would someone put linoleum in the master bath of a house but tile in the kids/family bathroon? That just doesn’t make sense to me.
Also, I’ve learned from my experience that you don’t want to buy a linoleum with too much texture. In the house I had before this one, my kitchen linoleum was white with little ‘pits’ in the texture and a green pattern. When we tracked in dirt, it got ground down into the little ‘pits’ and I could not get it out. The floor always looked dirty. I tried mopping and scrub brushes. The only thing that worked was getting down on my hands and knees and scraping it out with my fingernails or a knife. I was so happy when we put the laminate in the living room and hallway and decided to cover the linoleum in the kitchen with the laminate also. I was very happy with the laminate in the kitchen until I realized the smearing issue…and that the laminate would warp when wet when our sink was overflowed. Can’t win sometimes, can you? Lol!
Anyway, since we are trying to relocate so my hubby won’t have to drive 1 1/4 hours one way to work we are trying to move. I think I have learned lots of lessons about what I want/don’t want in my next home that we hope to live in forever! Lol!
I’ve really got used to the new blog site and am loving it! Thank you and Tawra so much for all of the advice and also the ‘community’ atmosphere.
Good chatting with you Jill! Happy Independence Day!
Angie
Angie I made the same mistake on the kitchen floor I was talking about earlier. Not only was it white but also pitted. I thought that floor was going to kill me. You are right. Live and learn.
Hi Angie!…Just adding my 2 cents worth of info. Hope it helps. Stone tile (probably SLATE)is usually not finished (glazed)and was probably NOT sealed,which can make it absorb water like a sponge. Also if you didn’t seal your grout after it was done,it will also become a sponge.The mildew you smell is most likely the underlayment (the floor under the tiles)…it’s probably soaked and rotting and will need to be replaced before you redo the floor.FYI!! Mildew can go to mold!!
Be wary of linoleum as it is slippery when it is wet!!…If you decide to re-tile, there is an orange membrane that gets applied to the floor before the tiles (see HGTV.com RE: Holmes on Homes)that prevents water damage to the floor. Also, with tile, the smaller the tile, the more traction for feet (grout aids in preventing slips) We put in 2″ x 2″ white tiles w/black accent tiles….Can you tell we bought a ‘money pit’? lol…I hope that helps…Have a SAFE 4th of July everybody!! LOVE the website!! God Bless!!….Paula
Wow I didn’t know stone had to be sealed. I will have to remember that! We love Holmes on Homes too!! I have to say that watching it while you are trying to buy a house is very unnerving!
I love Holmes on Homes too. My first house was a money pit too. After 25 years I sold it and it still wasn’t done so I feel your pain.
The best floor covering in my opinion is Oriental rugs. They’re very busily patterned so they hide everything, and if the dog throws up on them, you can take them to the dry cleaner and have them really cleaned. Our foyer has terra cotta tiles which came with the house. They wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I must say they hide everything, and I have two kids and three dogs so I know!
I love rugs too!
I love my stick steamer. Fast light and small.
It does not shine a laminate floor though.
I have in my kitchen those stick on tiles. They work well and are easy to replace but with my 3 cats and their sharp claws I now have white spots near their food bowls and in front of the fridge. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t get rid of them. Then I was scrubbing on my hands and knees as a last resort to get rid of them and discovered they were where the colour had scraped off the tiles. I think a dog would do more damage. But at $1. a sq ft. and it lasted 10 years it wasn’t a bad investment.
For my laminate floor I use Natura Laminate & hardwood cleaner. It seems to make it a bit shinier. You spray it on and wipe it off. It has Australian Tea Tree oil in it so any product with that in it would probably work.
The thing I don’t like about the laminate is if you spill something wet on it that caused it to warp. I have a couple of very old cats who do have accidents so we did the dining room with plans to do the living room at the same time. Poor old Cassie would hide behind something and do her business and that left one board kind of deformed. So we have put off doing the living room until the cats are gone. I am just glad the board is in a corner and not in the middle of the room.
I do not like carpeting in any way shape or form. If it is wall to wall I can never seem to get it clean at the walls or corners.
I love hardwood flooring or the laminate and I love tile.
I have heard cork floors are easier on the back and hips but where I live the cost is pretty high since it has to be ordered special so that adds to the cost.
I put beautiful black tile in the bathroom and I will never do that again. Every spot shows and even scrubbing everyday does not get rid of the white water marks that are always in a bathroom.
Vinyl is very easy to care for. We have it in the kitchen, utility roon abd bathroom in this house. My sister-in-law has pergo and absolutely adores it. I have a white area carpet on my living room floor and I am constantly cleaning it and our kiddos are grown and gone from this house. I agree that light colored carpet it from the devil.
We bought our money pit 16 yrs ago from a CONtractor (accent on CON). He used throwaway stuff (or as we say spit, sh** and bailing wire)to put this place together. My husband and I have tore open the walls, cleaned mold, reinsulated,sheetrocked,mudded,sanded, painted…..you name it! He didn’t screw the cabinets into studs, so they almost came off the wall on our toddler as I was filling them!!…I agree that light color carpet (and linoleum!!) is from SATAN!! Someone should be hung for even dreaming up the colors!! You KNOW it wasn’t a housewife with kids!!LOL…When we bought here we had light colored linoleum w/dents made to look like tile…HATED it!! Could not keep it clean. When we did over the kitchen, the salesman for flooring thought I was nuts, when I asked for vinyl “the color of dirt” (seriously!!). My floor is faux slate tiles w/brown mixed in…LOVE it!!(congoleum ULTIMA). I like sheet vinyl in the kitchen. If you have a major spill/leak it won’t go through and warp the floor. This floor has a satin finish and cleans up like a dream (and hides the stuff even better!!lol).I use a Libman wonder mop and simple green cleaner. I’ve used “proshot” on my old wood floors to give them a new life, but then made a major MISTAKE. We priced out to have the floors redone, and it was way to much $$, so I saw an article in a country magazine to paint them. DON’T DO IT!!…It shows all the dirt/marks and ruins the floors. We now have applied peel and stick vinyl ‘parquet’ tiles over the painted floors. Looks good, wears like iron and cleans like a dream,but no more solid wood floors!:(…To save the floors and make moving furniture easier we bought glides and permanently attached them to EVERY piece of furniture we own.
The best carpet we ever owned was a low pile commercial gray (here’s that dirt color again!LOL)with flecks in it. My Dad worked in the garment district(NYC) and companies would rent the floors for “Fashion Week”. They would decorate and carpet for 1 week, after which the place had to be stripped clean for the next tenant. My Dad would bring home rolls of 1 week old commercial carpet for the family/friends who could use it! Now you know why clothes are sooo expensive in this country!! The carpet vacuumed like a breeze, and the nap was so low, nothing got trapped in it…Right now we have vinyl parquet through most of the house, and I’ve bought pre-bound (sewn edges) remnants from Home Depot/Lowes/Walmart as area rugs. Low nap, easy to keep up, and you can trash them if their ruined, without feeling guilty, like with an expensive rug or wall to wall…They’re great in kids/rec rooms and if company’s coming – vacuum, roll up and tape, hide in the garage till the inlaws leave!!lol…They save your floors and give the kids/dog someplace warm to sit on…Also GREAT for staging when you’re selling….P
Paula. I have now started using the area rugs too and so far they seem to work great. Tawra has that same dirt colored, slate looking vinyl in her bathroom and it looks great and is easy to clean. You are right. Always get a rug the color of dirt.
Also years ago “in the olden days” we had vacuum salesmen come by all the time. I had made the mistake of putting solid dark purple plush carpet in my nursery. It showed every piece of lint and was hard to vacuum. When the salesmen would come I would have them do their demo in the nursery instead of the easies to clean living room. To say the least most of them couldn’t clean it.
i always liked thhose sticky vinyl tile things that are on the flooring… not too expensive, easy to take care of and well when tired of it, can be taken up…
my friend has this in her house and she says its easier than any of the other flooring she has ever had…
she has a nice color too… the white in her kitchen is just awful to keep looking nice but the tannish colored one she has is really nice and it looks like tile too…
i like the pattern that looks like wood flooring…
my sister hated her flooring in her townhouse and kept her flooring uncovered for years until she found what she really liked (she had the bare cement flooring showing) … and had throw rugs down where they walked… and every so often she replaced them with new rugs (she found the rugs at carpet stores that either they were getting ready to throw out or charged her so little, it was like pennies per yard…
our house we live in now has those sticky floor coverings (not sure what they are called) and that is fine with me… our bedrooms have carpet in them and yes i do plan on taking htem out… our landlord said bc we are getting ready to sign anther lease, we can do this (it will be our 8th lease) and well the carpet came with the house and the house is over 30 yrs old)… i told him i will probably go with the cheapest flooring and he said htat was ok with him…
i do agree some flooring is just a bear to keep looking neat, clean and nice… esp if you have kids/pets…
i remember when i was little we had hardwood floors and mom used to wax them once a month (i used ot help) and what a bear of a job that was … we werent allowed to walk around in our shoes in the house (had to take htem off by the door, there was a chair and a box there to help with this)… and at nite all rooms had to be vacuumed (if there was carpet), swept and mopped (this was all rooms and it didnt matter if the flooring was cleaned earlier in the day… we lived in rental homes and mom said she didnt want any issues wiht hte landlord if he/she came to visit)…
a little neurotic? maybe but then she had 5 kids in the home and we were all different ages …
In the past I have bought shoe racks/pockets that hang on the back of the door for our kids to keep their shoes in. I have found the plastic ones don’t last long. Shoe bins have become a great headache in our house because they get jumbled up and shoes end up under the bed somewhere. So I took some leftover material and sewed them shoe pockets to hang on the backs of the doors(idea from my mom). They each get four pockets and any shoes that don’t have a space get donated. This has cost me very little because I had scrap material. I had to purchase hooks to slide over the top of the door. I used a really sturdy branch ,an inch in diameter, to place the loops on the hooks. I was inspired by this idea so I made each child a six pocket holder to put their stuffies in and any thing that doesn’t fit goes. It has cut back on alot of clutter and clean up. And the kids have been able to pick out really special things and get rid of others that take up space. They hang their stuffy pockets on the ends of their beds just like the shoe pockets hang on the back of the door. The stuffy holders have strings instead of loops so they can be tied on the beds. Their friends loved it so much I am now making some for them.
I hated hardwood floors too. I live in the north, and I was always so cold on those hardwood floors. Also they got scratched and constantly needed to be dust-mopped. I bought a light cream wall to wall rug. I love it, but hey, I don’t have any children living with me (I might change my mind when I have grandchildren, finally) and it is a life long dream to live in one of those beautiful creamy pink homes.
Maybe if I have to replace this carpet because of grandkids, I’ll get a rose colored rug. Ohhhhhhhh!
We have hardwood floors put in our home. I was soooo happy. Fast forward to the present (10 yrs. later) and all I can see is water spots from our dispenser that our grand daughter love to play with and scratches all over it. If a h/w floor isn’t maintaining it’s shine it really looks awful. I gave up being anal about it when my third grandchild came about. I now have 8. I think I would much rather have a peel and stick in a parquet pattern. We had this kind of floor years ago and I loved it.
That is my floor of choice now!!! With 4 kids and probably a lot of grandkids in the future I don’t want to worry about how much money I wasted on a floor that was quickly ruined! With the cheap stuff you can change it whenever you want and not worry about it! The best part is you can have “new” flooring every few years if you get tired of the other stuff too!
One thing a lot of Canadians do is take off their shoes when we enter a house. The dirt from outside isn’t spread around the rest of the house and the floors are saved a lot of scratches from hard shoes.
A lot of homes where they entertain a lot have a basket of knitted or terry cloth slippers for guests but most you just go in your sock feet. I don’t wear socks much even going out so I carry a pair of ankle socks to put on in the house.
People from other countries laugh or are disgusted with this practice but we keep up the tradition.
We replaced the carpet in our former home. I bought a variegated color that matched our dirt! Hardly showed anything! I also replace the kitchen floor with tile. My grout was the very same color as our dirt! Why fight it? I had a dusty desert colored carpet, tile and grout. It looks so warm and comfortable! Too bad we don’t have that house anymore… Camouflage works!
I really don’t like the Pergo flooring! It is the pickiest flooring I know! Don’t you dare accidentally spill on that! The seams can swell! I don’t like the sound. Real wood is so forgiving! I don’t mind if my wood has “character.” The rest of my house does! And so do I!
I have carpet the shade of butter. (So perhaps it is only demon influenced instead of fully demonic.) It will be 29 next year! And four big dogs died and it, and my least one is aged 11. Since I lived in Korea I keep a no shoe house to keep it clean, leave the dirt and chemicals out the door and preserve my possessions.
We once had beige carpet in our house with 3 kids I struggled to keep it clean.
Eventually we decided to remove it and put wood flooring.
We have a rug in the middle.
Now cleaning my house is so easy.