Small Steps to Tidyness

I sometimes feel like I'm fighting a losing battle when it comes to trying to get a neat and tidy house. The three of us seem to spread our belongings over a wider area as possible! Whenever I tackle one corner or room the children are trashing somewhere else. It becomes a bit of a vicious circle but one I'm determined to break!


This half term my mum volunteered to help sort out the sitting room which really ought to be a place I can be happy to invite people into. It's an awkward room as it has the hall opening into it at one end, the kitchen coming out the other and the stairs going up the side. There is also a fireplace on one wall with a fake fire in it which we have never used. The way we originally put in the furniture was dictated by these constraints and the large traditional TV we have been lent.


There was little option as to where to put the Ladderax storage as only one corner had enough room. However we ended up with first of all the sofa and then the children's chairs in front of the shelves as there was no where else to put them. This made the storage quite hard to use and manage it ended up looking like this:

Not a very inviting looking bit of storage! My mum on Monday helped me to shift furniture round so that nothing was in front of the shelves any more. I then found that where I sit was directly opposite all that mess... So on Saturday with no trips out I decided to knuckle down and do something about it. 



Step one was to clear the shelves and also empty out the games cupboard (bottom left). As a family we reviewed all the games and put some on one side for selling and at least one was only fit for the bin! My daughter then re-arranged all the games into the cupboard leaving only a couple that were too wide to fit. Meanwhile I sorted through the extraneous items and gave each of us a bagful of items that belonged in our rooms and chucked out items such as the old Argos catalogue. By this point we decided it was time to stop for lunch:

The job for the afternoon was the DVD section. Going through finding out which cases had no film or and in some cases the wrong film(s). Again some were put on one side to part with and others deemed too scratched will be binned and if wanted replaced gradually. I then organised the shelves into a better sort of order so that only the favourite DVDs were on public display. I also very geekily sorted the Disney DVDs into chronological order... 


I was very pleased with the final result:

Hopefully I can maintain the tidiness of this part of the room whilst getting the rest to match. Unfortunately that is on hold as I've not yet been able to borrow a smaller TV to fit on the coffee table. I'm sure that before too long I will be able to have a front room I can be proud of again (children permitting!)