Cleaning & Organizing
flickf9234
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Help! Need some suggestions...
I'm absolutely sick of working on my house. My wonderful husband is a pack rat, possibly bordering on a hoarder. I have to nearly beg him to throw stuff away. I've had to sneak two power strip cords in the trash because he thinks he can use them for a project that he'll never get done! He's always been a pack rat but honestly, it's been worse since both his grandfather's died and his grandma moved closer but to a smaller house. Our house is a disaster zone of clutter as well as a ton of unfinished projects that he's started and can't seem to get done. We bought our house from my in-laws, who are wonderful people, but seem to have had a bunch of work done on their house before we bought it that looked great but turned out to be terrible so we've got a ton of work. My biggest problem is that I can't get my husband motivated at all. He works odd times, not usually going in until 4 or 6 pm and getting off at 10:30 pm. The weekends aren't much different. After work he comes home and turns on the tv and watches far more than he realizes. He does some work after I go to bed but so much of it is on the basement which doesn't do anything for the upstairs which is my biggest problem since everyone sees it. Because he ends up staying up so late and he's a night owl by nature, he ends up sleeping until noon or so. By this time, I'm nearly off work since I go in at 7 am and am off usually by 1 pm. I try to work on the house as much as I can but I've been suffering from lots of sleep issues lately which I'm going to the doctor for. Being exhausted and having to deal with my house is completely overwhelming. I keep telling my husband he can keep his stuff but he has to organize it. I have boxes I haven't unpacked that I've seriously considered not unpacking, just tossing out without even looking at it. Right now our kitchen is torn up to the point I can't cook and nearly every room has a project he starts and hasn't finished. He's taking a week off to redo our bathroom and I've put my foot down that it has to be done at the end of the week because I'm not living without our main bathroom. We have a small bathroom but showers will have to be taken at my in-laws house. Thank God they live a block away. He starts school again in August as he's going for his Master's degree but I think I'm stuck sitting out again so I can try to get more done around here if I'm not completely exhausted still. We can't afford to hire anyone to help us organize or to work on the house so I honestly don't know what to do. If anyone can offer any suggestions to get my husband motivated I'd appreciate it!
Re: Help! Need some suggestions...
Oh man, I can see why you're stressed! It's hard to try and do things yourself, especially if you and your H are working opposite schedules (this is us too. I work from home 8-5, H works from 4pm-1:30am). About a year ago I was in pretty much the same place you are right now.
Nest Cayla's suggestion of going room by room is a great one. Pick one room a day (or even a week, and spend just 30 minutes or so a day in that room). Put things into 3 piles: keep, donate or trash. Move all the stuff in the trash pile immediately to the garbage, and put the things to donate in the car so you can drive to Goodwill or someplace. Trust me, if you leave them lying around they will stay there forever! I would however make sure that anything you think your H might be attached to, that you discuss it with him before you toss it out
Also, a habit I've picked up is to only pick something up once. So for example, junk mail doesn't get moved from the living room, to the kitchen to the office for shredding--I look at it, and either toss or shred immediately instead of putting it down somewhere.
For the kitchen stuff in boxes, I would open them up and look to see if it's stuff that you (1) Will actually use and (2) that you have room for. Maybe ask your H to help you go through the boxes and either help you find a place for things or make a decision to toss them.
I don't really have any suggestions as to how to motivate your H, aside from maybe once he sees how nice it is to have one room that is completely clean and clutter free he'll decide that he wants the rest of the house to look that way too. Just know that I can commiserate--my H is a pack rat, and tends to leave things around for projects that never get done. Most of his stuff is now sitting in boxes on his side of the garage so it doesn't bother me as much since I don't have to look at it all the time. I also have a small basket in some of the rooms around the house for the things that he find and brings home from work to use for his projects or "just in case". I love having baskets and bins in the house--they can help contain clutter and look nice!
Good luck!