I just wanted to know if everyones house is usually neat or messy. I am not a very neat house keeper and was just wondering if anyone else out there is the same. I hate to have anyone over because I always think that they will judge my house. I just feel that everyone elses house that I go in is so clean.

well right now the downstairs is very neat and the upstairs is messy.....but that is because dh kept our kids and my girlfriends kids last night so that we could have a girls night out and it got quite messy. BUT.....it will all be neat again by the end of the day!

As much as I try to keep things neat....I must admit my house is messy!!! My mom was messy too......can I blame it on her

Kathie

My grandmother has always said if people come to visit her..they come to see her...not her house!

Now with that said...My house is very old and in need of some repairs so to me it seems messy.
I try to keep my kitchen/dinning room clean because thats where the door we use to enter the house, but with all the couponing I do, things seem to stack up on my counters, lol.

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TLJ ~ Women United in Spirit

I refer to my house as having a "lived in" look.

We live in a small three bedroom trailer and there are five of us. So, there are toys scattered, but a path to walk thru. There are 5 different boxes of cereal on the shelf, all openned, but you have a selection to choose from. The laundry is piled up in the laundry room, but it gets done. HOWEVER**** The countertops are cleaned multiple times thru out the day, the table is cleaned through out the day, floors are swept, carpets are vacuumed. It is a NEAT MESSY house, but it not a filth. I clean surfaces, I clean floors, we use the trash can, etc. Things are supposed to be put their place, ie toys in box, dishes in dishwasher, etc.

But I know what you mean, I feel like everyone elses' house is so neatly kept and so well organized. But on the same hand those people usually don't have kids or if they have ONE kid, the kid is usually 'kept' in their room and aren't allowed to live outside of it.

For me, I would love to have a neatly kept home, but at the same time, I want my children to feel like their at home and not stuck in a room. I dont want them walking on eggshells around the house, or scared to death they'll mess up something. I want to see them play, so I can have share in their memories as well.

So that's why I call it a Lived In home.

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Pretty neat and tidy right now~~but the kids have been at their dad's all weekend... I am NEVER embaressed if someone would drop by. My house isn't spotless clean but compared to many others I've seen, mine pretty neat. Sometimes we have some toys laying around, crayons and coloring books...kids pic up their stuff daily...and they have a playroom/den that they can make a big mess in....Just not the main part of the house

My mother kept the most cleanest and neatest house on earth.It took me 20 years to become the slob that all my bfs created,lol. Now they do all the work! Bf just got done washing dishes and is now vacuuming ,so its getting there. Being a clean freak was NOT an easy habit for me to break!

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I keep our living room, dining room, kitchen and bathroom very neat and clean. All the bedrooms seem to get the overflow. They are clean but stuff stacked everywhere ie: clean clothes, papers...

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Our house is very neat. If it gets cluttered or messy, DH is in a bad mood. He likes it neat and orderly. I do, too, but have a little higher tolerance than he does!

Lisa

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"It's not having what you want,
It's wanting what you've got"

That sounds like how I do housework as well. Our house is very 'lived in'... We are homebodies so it does seem to need to have a certain amount of stuff laying around. We always pick up the living room and dining room before bed and the kitchen gets cleaned once a day. Bedrooms get cleaned once a week but I always have stacks around (I am the stacker... not my DH, he is neat! but not a neat-freak!).

Our house is usually kinda messy and since it is just the two of us, I can't figure out why!
Right now we are in the middle of a bunch of remodeling so it's understandable.
We are also into some big cleaning and tossing so I still have hope.

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Square dancing is friendship set to music!

My kids bedroom is messy, toys everywhere. Even when the toys are put into the toy boxes, it just looks messy. I think it's because they have too much "stuff".
The rest of my house is lived in but clean. We have messy days but not dirty days. To me, there's a difference in living in your house and having "normal" mess and being dirty. I think if your floors are swept, vacuumed, mopped or whatever regularly, your toilets, sinks and bathtubs are clean then a few toys on the floor or a few dirty dishes in the sink doesn't mean you're a slob.

both....some rooms are always neat and some rooms always seem to be messy. My livingroom is always ready for company. I do so much cooking that the ktichen stays a mess. It seems I can't stand it neat and tidy so I start another cooking project and mess it up again.

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No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9

I try to keep the downstairs neat, but by midday the toys and arts and crafts stuff take over. I also have clean laundry stacked on our guest bed needing folding, we all usually "live off the pile" but it never seems to go down because I am always adding to it and never have quite enough time to fold it all and put it away. (Guess I could be doing that now instead of being on here, but I dont feel like it...again!!) The other thing I cant seem to control is the shoes near the front door. I do clean the floors and the bathrooms regularly and make the beds most everyday though.

I would call our house average, Ive been in some neighbors homes with kids and they are a disaster compared to ours!

I have a friend with 2 little ones and you could eat off her floors, I dont know how she does it.

DH always tells me how his mom managed to clean, cook, and take care of her husband...etc with 2 small kids and I just tell him to shut up!

I am a fanatic about having a clean and tidy house. My Grandmother raised me and she was the same way and my Grandfather used to say I am worse than she ever was!

I clean and straighten all of the time and have a cleaning lady who comes twice a month to do the really good clean.

It's hard with 2 kids, and I am sorry to say I keep right on them to clean one mess up before taking another one out, sometimes I feel guilty about that. There are times when things aren't perfect like today, we are cleaning out and doing laurdry all day so the kids are running crazy.

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"A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked." ~ Bernard Meltzer

I think I'm like most of you - clean but a little messy. I swish and wipe down the toilet everyday, keep the kitchen counters clean, sweep the floors, make the beds and do at least one load of laundry everyday. The problem is paper clutter and toys. My kids have toys everywhere and DH and I love to read so we have lots of books and magazines. I try not to let it get messier than I can tidy it up in 15 minutes (I've been brainwashed by http://flylady.net)

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Cecilia

"We must love them both--those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it."
Saint Thomas Aquinas

I am anal-retentive clean. I am ALWAYS cleaning and picking up. I cannot leave the house messy. Before we leave in the AM, the beds are made, dishwasher is emptied ( I load it after dinner, and run it when I go to sleep) I clean my kitchen daily, and my bathrooms every other day. I vacuum and mop 4 times a week, and sweep the tile every day. After dinner, DH bathes the kids, and I walk room to room, picking up laundry, loading the dishwasher, picking up the playroom, etc. The only room that I allow to be unkept during the day is the playroom. But, I pick it up every night.

I also vacuum and wash my car every week.

My ONLY cleaning "downfall" is laundry. I HATE doing it. Sometimes I have 4-5 loads stacked up.

Messy than their are days it looks a hurricane went thru it.. The days when everything is pick I still consider it's messy..I just don't have the engery like I use too. I use to be a clean freak and if it doesn't shine it's not clean to me

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Angels may not come when you call them, but they'll always be there when you need them.

We have a neighbor who washes his car or truck, inside and out, every day that it is even half way decent weather.
I have another neighobr who backs her car out of the garage when it rains to get a free car wash!
She is always cleaning her house and I do mean always!

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Square dancing is friendship set to music!

I try to keep the house clean and picked up...buy my DH is an admitted messie..so it makes it hard. I can clean all day and within 5 min, poof back to what it was. I try to pick up at night before I got to bed and I wipe the kitchen counters every day, laundry once a week.

I am working on getting the kids to keep their room clean, if only I could get the big kid too!

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" Even though life can be a very long, hard, stressful and never-ending journey, never lose hope in what you want the most."

Messy, but I don't care.

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I've never lied to you. I've always told you some version the of truth.

Usually clean downstairs, since my piano students' families see my home every week! LOL.
Upstairs is another story - but I'm trying to get a grip on that (and trying to enlist the help of DH and kids...)

I keep a pretty tidy house. The only room in the house that I would consider 'messy' is my teenage daughters room. I'm not a neat-freak by any means, but I like it to be kept up and looking half decent.

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"Why must you speak, when you have nothing to say." Horatio Hornblower

I prefer it when my house is picture perfect. I am able to enjoy myself and relax, but that is a rare case.
Right now it is way to messy for me to handle. That is what I get for not being home for several days.
Hopefully I can get it done this upcoming week.

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Neat!! but I'm not ANAL about it.

My house is comfortable.. my sister's is magazine perfect I love going there.. I swear it's just like it jumped off the pages of Southern Living... She has a real gift when it comes to decorating. and she bargain shops too!
She's my hero!

X

I use to be a real neat nut, dh use to tell the guys at work that I was so bad I even vacuumed the mattress. LOL !

I'd totally clean out closets, drawers, cabinets, every spring & fall.

I still get compliments on my clean house, just don't look in my closets. LOL !

Ditto to the above. I am anal-retentive and everyone calls me out on it. Oh well...better than living in a pig sty.

ROFL.. Ashame to admit it but I use to vac the mattress too..I also use to vac the couch & loveseat every Friday

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Angels may not come when you call them, but they'll always be there when you need them.

My home is semi-neat. Used to be spotless before the Internet.

Common areas are very neat and tidy. I'm not responsible for what you'll find in my 13 year old ds bathroom...
The kids are in charge of their bedrooms and they picked up the rooms before school and beds made.
I can't stand a mess.. it's really kind of a down fall of mine, wish I wasn't so uptight about it.

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"Cougars for Cook"

uh...I think we'd be described as decorator style : "lived in meets garage sale " LOL

It's CLEAN...it just has a homey clutter-ish (is that a word?) feel.

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Long Lost ejm99 !

SHEEEE'SSS BAAAAACK!

I'm a total clean freak! So bad that my family makes a joke of it.

I cannot stand anything on my counters, laundry must be done daily, I have to have that just vaccumed look, and bathrooms and floors are mopped every other day, sometimes daily.

It's a terrible obsession, honestly!

Our house is definitely messy, not dirty, just messy and cluttered a lot of the time. It's really hard sometimes with a new baby to keep up with everything. MIL watches DD during the day for us and on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at her house, and INSISTS on coming to our house to do it on Tuesdays and Fridays. It is nice to not have to take DD back and forth on Tuesdays and Fridays, but, I just about kill myself every Monday and Thursday night trying to get everything spotless before she comes over the next day. It drives me nuts! I just wish that since she is the one insisting on coming to our house twice a week, that she would do it two days in a row. We brought that up once, but, she said this is what she prefers to do. Once or twice I actually left a single cotton ball in the trash can in our main bathroom and when I came home from work I noticed it was no longer in there. I never let the trash cans in the bathrooms get very full anyways, but I never thought that one cotton ball would bother her so much that she would need to empty it herself! It really aggrivates me sometimes.

I can totally relate...so true! Mine is very neat...I love to clean and hate to cook...weird, isn't it?...Friends always comment on how clean my home is...I guess that's a compliment, but sometimes I feel that they don't want me coming to their house for fear that I'll think theirs is messy...which is totally untrue...I'd never do that...I just obsess about my own house, not others...I can't stand a dirty bathroom...I'm constantly cleaning the kids bathroom...I really should make them do more chores, but I like the way I clean better...I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I know that I'm doing them a diservice by not making them do more...I get in a really bad mood when things are dirty and messy...The only part of the house that's sort of a mess is the basement...That's the kids space and right now I'm going to start working on fixing it up, getting rid of old toys, paint it... ~Lisa

Mine's cluttered. I have so much kitchen stuff but nowhere to put it all! So it sits in the moving boxes it was put in when we moved into this house.
I have tons of things to put away from all the clearance sales too.
We've decided to rent a storage unit for our clutter since there is just not enough room in this house(our last home was MUCH bigger). Once we move holiday and kitchen items out, it will be much neater.
Can't wait until we buy a home, I'm tired of living in this tiny place.

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I'd say our house is 90% neat/clean 90% of the time...I am somewhat of a neat/clean freak so if I don't have time or energy to clean it or put it up it gets shoved in a drawer or a closet! My closets and drawers are my 10% downfall, I suppose.

I hate clutter...with six people in a little cape cod it is hard to keep it reined it...I throw things away a lot!! Downstairs is clutter-free and usually pretty neat and tidy. Upstairs...the girls bedrooms, well usually it is hard to see the carpet. Toys are taking over. It is time to sort through them again...Their closets are bursting with hand-me-downs. They are neatly organized in totes, just too many of them.

I used to be mortified if someone just dropped in. I am a better housekeeper now and usually the house is very presentable...as long as they don't go upstairs!!! We host a bible study every Friday night so that really helps me keep the downstairs picked up and clean.

Definitely neat. I hate clutter; can't relax around it.

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Neat. Try to ensure the common areas - living room, dining room, kitchen, guest bathroom, guest room & den are clean, orderly and neat at all times. (just in case someone comes to visit unexpectedly). Dh washes all dishes each morning. I do most of the cooking. We make a good team, I vacuum, he dusts. I get trash bags tied and in garage, he dumps them.

Yesterday, we cleaned the garage out ...together!

Master bedroom & master bathroom are usually in need of cleaning. Have no time to make bed, dh gets up later than I do. He doesn't make the bed either. His folded laundry sits until he puts it away. There are usually some clothes I need to hang back up on a chair.

Our philosophy on the master bathroom: Whomever is most troubled, cleans it! I won this round. Dh was scrubbing the tub when I got home on Friday night. I helped with the floors, counter and mirror. It's just one of those rooms, we can close the door and tend to overlook, cuz it's just us. You know?

Neat here.. then again I live alone so there is no one to mess it up

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~~~~**Maryann**~~~~

I just got a firm grip on reality....
Now I can strangle it

Messy!!! Seems like I never get it all cleaned up at once.

Neat, there is always a few things on the kitchen table, coupons, homeschool books, but nothing that can't be shelved quick for a visit. Unexpected visitors do not create panic or anxiety attacks.

I clean my house up at night after the kids are in bed and I had a little time to relax... about 10 mins. but i clean it up after my kids go to bed and b4 my dh gets home! My friend and I were talking the other day and she said well your house only looks clean... because I dont scrub it 24/7 , but hey there's no dust and usually when messy just kids toys .

I value a neat house but I work (I'm a nurse) and also back in college to further my nursing degree. SO, I get help. I LOVE MY MAID! To come home and study in a clean house is worth every penny.

Neat as I get so nervous with clutter. I have been working more so not exactly how I want it but it's neat. I have always been like this since I was a kid. My thing is to do a little everyday instead of waiting for all at once.

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Without Health you have no Wealth!

Lets say I would put the messiness of my bedroom against my 9 year old nieces and probably win the best mess award. Right now my apartment is embarassingly dirty. Had a kitchen flood that I am still trying to get cleaned up from and of course the rest of the place goes to pot.

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Laura
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I try hard to keep it neat, but it is usually messy. I have a preschooler and a first grader. The preschooler is super messy, despite me trying to make it easy for him to keep things need, the 1st grader is pretty good about picking things up. DH likes the house neat, but doesn't like to put things away where they belong (right now there are *still* tools on the bathroom counter from when he installed some new towel bars last weekend). My parents are messy, so that is what I grew up with and it's a hard cycle to break.

Sarah........mom to Jason & Devin