Reflections on housekeeping

[ailbhe]

Forgive me for being list-happy; it's easier than real entries.

1. It is much easier to keep everything in its place when everything has a place.
2. No household task takes more than 20 minutes. If it does, it's more than one task and should be rewarded as such.
3. Yes, I should be rewarded for household tasks. If I got someone else to do it, I'd pay them, wouldn't I?
4. People will forgive a lot if they can see you're in the middle of a major DIY project.
5. Or if you feed them.
6. I will forgive myself a lot if I get the dining table clear and usable once every day.
7. When the weather is good, we can eat in the garden.
8. Clean underwear is laundry's most valuable reward.
9. I hate carpets and must get rich and buy wooden flooring.

Comments

[artela.livejournal.com]

It is much easier to keep everything in its place when everything has a place.

Aye - there's the rub - it doesn't matter how big your house nor how much room you have, there is *still* never a place for everything :-)

No household task takes more than 20 minutes. If it does, it's more than one task and should be rewarded as such.
Yes, I should be rewarded for household tasks. If I got someone else to do it, I'd pay them, wouldn't I?

A woman after my own heart :-)
Although sometimes, if the studying is very hard, the half-hour housework break is a reward for having forced myself to study - I then get a proper break as a reward for the housework *g*

People will forgive a lot if they can see you're in the middle of a major DIY project.

This is one I'm hoping to test out this summer

Or if you feed them.

Ah - this one I know well...

I will forgive myself a lot if I get the dining table clear and usable once every day.

I'm the same, but over kitchen surfaces rather than the dining table

When the weather is good, we can eat in the garden.

Do this one a lot in the summer

Clean underwear is laundry's most valuable reward.

And nearly running out of underwaer is a sure sign that the laundry is due to be done yet again *g*

I hate carpets and must get rich and buy wooden flooring.

Carpets are actually better if you are owned by cats... their little occasional visitors are worse on wood floors if there are any gaps as spraying and hovering then becomes ineefective... with proper wood floors (ie. not overlain laminates) the little swines get right down under the floorboards where they breed and lie in wait :-(

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Carpets are actually better if you are owned by cats... their little occasional visitors are worse on wood floors if there are any gaps as spraying and hovering then becomes ineefective... with proper wood floors (ie. not overlain laminates) the little swines get right down under the floorboards where they breed and lie in wait :-(

Ooo, no. A properly laid wood floor has no cracks, either. And when one of the cats is sick on it, it can be wiped up with kitchen towel and a little strongly-diluted bleach, which isn't something I'd want to do on a carpet.

I don't know where astrogeek's dust comes from. But then, we've got blown air heating, which goes through a filter, so that may account for it.

Problem is, solid Canadian maple everywhere (except rooms with running water) is very expensive, if utterly gorgeous. We just promised ourselves we're never moving again.

[artela.livejournal.com]

Ah - now that's where our floors differ - yours is a spngly new shiny wood floor - mine, however, is an original laid in 1880-something floor... therefore the thick wood planks are not interlocking or anything, hence plenty of gaps to let all those horrid little visitors breed.

(PS. I've added both you and bellinghwoman to my friends list now that I know you are both on here *g*... if you're not sure who I am, just lets say that Wales is great and I'll see you on a weekend soonish in Bristol - I just don't use mine or his realnames in here)

Wooden floors

[ailbhe]

We also have 1800-and-something wooden floors; they are, sadly, no good as floors. We're going to get modern flooring laid over them, eventually, when we're rich. We've had to rip up the carpet in the bedroom anyway, as (a) it was pink, and (b) I can't sleep in a carpeted room for very long if I want to make a habit of breathing. But the cracks are large enough to lose an engagement ring...

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

#1: YES!!! My childhood manta was "a place for everything, and everything in its place". Apparently I used to say it as I wandered around cleaning my room. But anything I didn't have a place for, I dumped into a pile in the middle of the room. Shocking how little I've changed since I was 2.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

9. I hate carpets and must get rich and buy wooden flooring.


Yes!!!

The uncarpeted wooden floor in the largest room was high on the list of reasons I bought my house three years ago. It's *so* much easier to keep clean, especially with pets. I run a dust mop over it once a week and clean up spills and mud and such as they happen with a damp cloth.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

1. It is much easier to keep everything in its place when everything has a place.

More than that: it's impossible to achieve total tidiness without sufficient storage space (or less stuff, but let's push that bad and nasty idea away). Easier said than done. I don't think I've ever lived somewhere where there was, in fact, a place for everything. But it's a fine aspiration - and no, no, no, I refuse to believe that it cannot be done! I will not give up the struggle!

2. No household task takes more than 20 minutes. If it does, it's more than one task and should be rewarded as such.

Good one. I'm adopting this. I work well in 20-minute chunks. (And the reward thing. Definitely.)

4. People will forgive a lot if they can see you're in the middle of a major DIY project.

Cf. I Hate to Housekeep once again. (I seem to remember getting up at 7 a.m. on the morning of our Christmas party to finish glossing the skirting-boards in the hall...)

6. I will forgive myself a lot if I get the dining table clear and usable once every day.

It's all about pockets of feasibility - cutting paths through the jungle and keeping them usable. At Christmas we "tidied" downstairs, which involved shoving most of the crap under our bed upstairs. I now have a running ambition to extract and deal with one under-bed receptacle - just one - whenever the fit takes me, and sooner or later (who am I kidding? - later) it'll be clear. (So far, three down, many to go!)

[astrogeek.livejournal.com]

the trouble with wood floors is all the damn dust. I don't know ehere it all hides when you have carpets, but with wod floors I can nevr seem to get rid of it. Dust bunnies creep out from everywhere when you're not looking, especially just after you've swept the whole place.

[geekling.livejournal.com]

I hate carpets and must get rich and buy wooden flooring.

A woman of my heart. Carpets are evil! Anything is to be prefered over carpets. Exept maybe stomped dirt floor and that's only maybe. :P