More or less cluttered?

I've been sorting through my digital photo collection - over 7000 photos!    I noticed in a few photos that the house looked less cluttered three years ago than it does now, despite having devoted a lot of time over the last three years to decluttering.  Some days I feel defeated by the mess and clutter, and the appearance of no progress doesn't help.

I have a few theories:

a) we have more furniture.  A piano and a 8 seat dining table will make a room look a lot fuller than just a 6 seat dining table.
b) we have more toys.  I thought we had too many toys when Big Boy was a toddler, but we have twice as many now.
c) we have less stuff stored in cupboards and bedrooms, because I've sorted a lot of that stuff.
d) it is only in the last year or so that I have been consciously buying less, and only in the last six months that I have started to get the hang of buying less. Really, as much as has been coming back into the house as has been leaving the house.

But it has given me a little more motivation to:
a) continue buying less
b) try and be a little tidier.  I'm not a tidy person to start with, let alone with three other people in the house who don't tidy up after themselves either (yes, one of those is a grown up).  I need to declutter and tidy together in order to not keep feeling defeated by the clutter and mess.
c) continue to get rid of stuff that I don't need.
d) be patient.  The clutter didn't get here overnight, no will it disappear overnight, especially not with two children who need a lot of my attention.

So. Much. Space.

I saw a house for sale in a riverside suburb of my town yesterday.   I had a look at it on the realtor's website.  It was stunning, to say the least.

Five bedrooms, five bathrooms.   His and hers studies off the parents' retreat.  A media room.  I counted three different lounge rooms in the photos, as well as two dining rooms.  The laundry had more benches and cupboards than my kitchen, and a kitchen double the size of my kitchen.  Then there was a patio that looked like it could have been as big as my whole house!

The ad claimed floor space of 1200m2.  That's 13000 square feet.

I have no idea what I would do with that much space. Maybe share it with another family, or two.  Or three.  And hire a full time cleaner.

But fortunately I don't have $2.5 million to spend on a house.

Cupboards Full of Nothing

After the pest control man came and sprayed my house for cockroaches, he said there are a lot of eggs around.  I need to get rid of all the eggs, because each one contains another 30 cockroaches.  Getting any housework done with a 4-year-old and 3-month-old who both need little sleep and a lot of attention from mummy is a task and a half to start with, let alone trying to clean out cupboards as well!

But, I'm trying my hardest to get it done before he comes back for a re-inspection tomorrow.

I'd not actually noticed the eggs before.  I've seen the cockroaches, but not the eggs.  And, after cleaning out the cupboards, I know why.  The cockroaches are living in, and laying eggs in, the cupboards I don't access regularly. Why don't I access those cupboards?  Mostly because the stuff in them is stuff that I don't use.

I just found a platter full of dead cockroach bits that I didn't remember I had, don't remember where I got it from, and don't remember having used.  I'm not disgusted easily, but I am this week.

Here's to a less cluttered and more clean house!

I don’t want a house

We bought a cheaper, basic house with nothing in the back yard.  We thought we wanted to garden, and that we could save some money on the house itself by doing up the yard ourselves.  I was sure I wanted to be a gardener.  We’ve put in a small shed, a little patio to sit on to watch the kids play, and a garden bed.  And hardly use the back yard.  We also hate general maintenance, so it seems.  We had some minor flooding during the cyclone, because of a problem that probably should have been fixed a long time ago.  Now we really had better fix it.  

But then it dawned on me today: I don’t want to own a house.  

We bought a house because, well, that’s what you do.  Isn’t that what everyone with a family does?  I live in regional Australia, where everyone I know, have ever known, lives in a house with a yard.  If they live in a townhouse or a unit it is just until they can move into a proper house.   Every weekend you have to mow the lawn, and, at least at my house, most of the time we can’t even use the yard because it is so stinking hot.  I’ve been telling my husband for as long as we’ve lived here that I wish we didn’t have so much front yard because we don’t use it for anything but keeping the letterbox on. 

I still want to own a house rather than rent it - our mortgage repayments are far lower than rent, but now I’m wondering whether my family’s lifestyle is more suited to a 3-bedroom unit in a small complex. Somewhere we we can still have people over (which is something we do actually do), and maybe a couple of pots of tomatoes and things on the verandah, and then be able to walk to the park to play cricket or ride bikes.  Maybe a courtyard or a large verandah where the kids can get out and run around and where we can spend all our time outside (hey, I live in the tropics!). 

The funny thing is that I’ve been attracted to that style of housing for so long.  Maybe my subconscious has been trying to tell me something.  I think we probably should have known that we don’t like maintenance, because we aren’t exactly handy people.  I’d much rather read a book, and my husband would much rather kick a football, than prune trees or paint walls.  Really. 

The toughest thing now will be to convince my husband that we should even consider it.