I was sent a press release about a survey that IKEA conducted recently.
This….
“IKEA has recently released some insightful research about how disorganisation and clutter in the home affects relationships in the home. What came to light is that astoundingly (or maybe not so astoundingly) Aussie couples argue more over household clutter than infidelity. ”
“Aussie couples argue more over household clutter than infidelity.” Huh.
“Honey, we’ll deal with the fact that you’ve been flirting with the checkout chick later, but right now I’m pissed off that you keep dumping your shit on the kitchen table and not throwing out all those old war magazines!”
(Disclaimer: my husband isn’t flirting with any check out chick but he DOES have a stupid amount of war magazines that I wish he would do something with!)
And this….
“In order to be better organised at home there are a number of things Aussies believe would be a big help. Whilst better organised storage space (55%) and a bigger house (32%) top the list, 20% of respondents feel they would need to live alone, 11% need a different wife, husband or partner and 3% would need help from a psychologist. Moreover, 16% believe nothing would make them better organised!”
11% think that to have a better organised home, they would need a different wife, husband or partner.
I laughed. Because I have pondered that very thought. Also the thought that if I wanted a tidy, organised home, I would have to live alone.
Lucky for my darling family and others in the same situation, IKEA has stepped in with some fabulous tools to help get the home more organised so we can stop worrying about the clutter and start worrying about the woman making eyes at your husband.
(Disclaimer: again, there is no woman making eyes, that I know of, and if there is, it’s probably because her husband is a cluttering, untidy pig too and she’s in that 11%).
SO…. I was saying that IKEA has stepped in with some solutions.
SKUBB clothes boxes – These are great! They’re the perfect size to put into your drawers to store your socks, belts or jewellery. They come as a set of six and in black, white or lilac and they fold up flat when they’re not in use. These ones went right into Madeline’s dresser to try and control her stuff.
SKUBB clothes boxes – These come in black, white or lilac. The handle on the side makes it easy to pull out from the shelf. I never thought that I would have any problem filling storage boxes but I’m not sure what to do with these ones….yet.
DOKUMENT magazine files – Available in pink or white – and I am SO glad that I was sent the pink ones – these magazine files are made of the mesh metal stuff. One is wider than the other and they both have a little round handle to easily pull them from the shelf. These babies now live on my desk to keep my blogging paperwork…and stuff… in order.
GOLDMORGON box with compartments – These transparent set of five boxes with lids could be used in many ways. On your dresser, containing makeup. In your bathroom, containing cotton balls, cotton tips, makeup wipes, etc. One of my children also suggested that the little ones would be great for those fighting fish that live in tiny aquariums!
ANTONIUS laundry bag with stand – This metal stand with the white laundry bag went straight into Madeline’s bedroom. She has a really bad habit of leaving her dirty laundry on the floor. So I’m hoping that this will encourage her to toss her clothes in there instead and when it’s full, bring the bag into the laundry. Which realistically is only maybe 10 steps from her bedroom. Going by the photo, it’s working…so far.
ANTONIUS Frame – The Antonius system is pretty cool. You can basically customise it to your needs. I was sent this one which holds either 2 big tubs, 3 smaller ones or two smaller ones and one big one. I love flexibility of it. I was undecided as to whether I should put it in the girls’ bedroom and label it for their toys, put it in the bathroom for extra towel storage or in the laundry for…stuff, and because I took too long, the husband decided that the frame would be an awesome addition for his tools. That’s all kinds of wrong. Cheeky bugger!
See all those products I showed you up there? ^^
One TGDMer will win the lot!
To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment telling me what you find most frustrating when trying to keep your home organised.
Boring bits: Open to Aussie residents only. Giveaway ends 6pm AEST 9 March, 2012. Winner will be chosen (by me) based on creativity.
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Our toyroom and computer desk drives me batty! We don’t have anywhere near enough storage for our three kids toys and for our bussiness’ paperwork, plus both our study paperwork. We live in rural NSW so IKEA is a 3 hour drive for us. Thanks for opening up this giveaway – it’s such a great opportunity
The most frustrating thing for me is the school stuff that comes home every day and ends up on the dining table. All the notes, artwork, homework, craft, etc, etc. Help!
The constancy of children and life! Just when you think you have a home for everything and everything in its place, another round of toys, papers, what not turns up. It never stops.
The most frustrating thing for me?! … My partner!! (lucky I love him dearly!)
TOYS!! no matter what, they always end up in every single room of the house! declutter my mind of this frustrating problem!
Most frustrating for me is a borderline OCD husband combined with two small children. While I am forever grateful that the man loves a clean house (he really likes ironing, really, I’m not making it up. Plus I apparently don’t do it ‘properly’ so I let that go a loooooong time ago). But we struggle with the fact that a tidy house stays that way for all of 1.2seconds before its time to start all over again.
The much-loved golf shoes ,that can’t possibly be left outside. So instead they are taken off inside the front door-with wet grass and dirt stuck to them!
More than anything, my office frustrates the hell out of me. My job as a makeup blogger is very product-focussed and unfortunately I don’t have the storage space to manage all the “stuff”. I literally work off piles of products and paperwork on the floor. Unfortunately my 2 year old thinks this is great fun, but I wish she would keep her grubby mitts off my stuff. Makeup and toddlers DON’T MIX!
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Most frustrating?! OMG where do I start!!
I have 3 kids under 5, so you can imagine the mess they make. Nothing is ever in ‘it’s place’! As I’m walking passed a room, i find something lying in the ground, or a draw open in my ‘study (aka junk room) and the kids are playing with whatever they shouldn’t be, or some small dangerous bit of a broken toy that smaller bubs may swallow, so up on the kitchen bench or buffet it lands.
And it accumulates, day after day, week after week, for months, until the ‘stuff’ that has accumulated, needs a box. So we find a box, chuck it all in the box, then the box ends up in the ‘study aka junk room’.
This process is repeated, forever. day in day out. I haven’t seen my kitchen bench top clear ever (and ever isn’t an understatement!)
I swear, i have …..about 8 or so ‘boxes’ of accumlated junk, anything from broken toys, receipts, screws, papers, bills, dvd’s all in boxes, some the size of nappy boxes laying around the house!) FFS it’s a nightmare!
The most frustrating part is when our home is finally organised after a lot of time consuming hard work, it only takes a couple of day to go back where we started. All that work and sacrifice just for only a few days of peace and pleasure to see things in their place.
The hardest part for me is other people not living up to my expectations. I’m a typical Virgo where everything has it’s place and has to be neat.
That my idea of organised is not my partners idea of organised! Where things belong and how they should be positioned there, differ incredibly. It’s frustrating especially when he is trying to do the right thing but its just not right enough!
The million, trillion, zillion pieces of Lego that are scattered throughout our whole household!
Kids with clutter, under my breath I mutter.
At my partner I did scream, because those work boots aren’t clean.
IKEA would organise the day, items stored in cubes and trays.
wallets, sunnies and keys on the bench – HUBBY
leggo, cars, blocks, Pencils, Paper – Peeps
Dummies, Dummies,Dummies on the floor – Baby Peep
Added together, equals one frustrated unorganised – MUMMY
Lego pieces all over the house,
Barbies on the floor,
Hubby’s socks add to the mess
It’s chaotic mess galore!!
Lego pieces all over the house,
Barbies on the floor,
Hubby’s socks add to the mess
It’s chaotic mess galore!!
never having enough room to put things where they belong
and a partner who puts things where he forgets
rushing around tidying up, everywhere things get chucked
there’s no winning the tidy game
I need a wife, oops that’s me, guess I lose there too
Household Bills – they seem to find the letterbox OK, then disappear from the kitchen bench never to be seen again. Perhaps they have visiting rights to the Planet of Lost Socks or the Planet of Dead Birds – beats me!
No waste , great taste, unclutter pleaser
I find the kids, the hubby & the pet birds are all pretty frustrating leaving their little messes everywhere. We have a word in our house ‘POC’. It stands for Pile Of Crap. We have a mummy poc, a daddy poc, and a whole toy room full of kid poc. So if we’re looking for a school note & it’s not on the corkboard then you would have to sort through mum’s poc on the bench. One day I really should unpoc our house lol.
Nothing is more frustrating than spending a whole weekend organising and cleaning and one mucky boyfriend comes in and leaves his clothes all over the floor and beer bottles lying round the lounge
Shoes and clothes strewn everywhere,
On the floor, hanging off door handles, over the corner chair!
No cupboards or shelving in my limited space,
It looks like a bomb has gone off in this place!
De-cluttering aids would create some order,
Preventing me getting a nervous disorder!
Just when I think I have it all under control I go and buy more “stuff” to add to the collection of “stuff” I already don’t have room for.
Every time I create some space by clearing out my stuff, hoarder hubby fills up the gap with his latest pile of “valuable” junk such as old travel brochures, caps, old magazines, football merchandise, newspapers clippings etc. Even when I just get something out of the cupboard to use, I often go to put it back and find the space taken
What I find the most frustrating is I spend all day Saturday cleaning my house from one end to the other. By the time I get to the end I turn aound and hubby has messed up the toilet (left the seat up) Bathroom (towl uneven & water on basin) Laundry (work clothes scattered on floor) Table (receipts and various items shrewn across) Floor (Dirt trudged in from outside) GRRRR! Please help me with boxes for his things to have a home.
My shed….organising my house is hiding everything in the shed….my son says” where is such and such” and I will say “in the shed”" and he will come back with “once it goes in the shed it never gets found”
The next meal time and there’s more,
It seems like it’s mess galore.
More paper from the mail man,
There should be a mess ban!
My partner’s parents are going through the ‘let’s clear out the house of anything our kids owned’ phase and we are still trying to move into our new (first!) home together!! Every month or so,we are receiving deliveries of boxes full of ‘space wasters’ and as the eternal hoarder,he will not throw anything away or unpack the boxes! Soon we will need to build ‘up’!!!
hi there Tina, just found your blog a couple of days ago and it sounds just like we are old friends he he he I’m not meaning to sound creepy really, your writing style is like so conversational and you make us feel at ease…. Anyways I have so many frustrations, the first one is lids to my containers, some lid monster must have superseded the sock monster in my house. When I cook something in bulk like a good girl, I fill the container up and cannot find the lid! I just have so many frozen containers full of food with glad wrap instead of lids. My friend from work’s ex husband snuck into their unit to get half his things and got all the lids from her containers!! Worst story ever! My second frustration is interruptions, that might include a phone call or something great happens like my neighbors have a great Barney, and hey pesto, I put down what ever it is that I’m cleaning with in a great hurry, and when I return, I either forget what I was looking for in the first place or spend at least half an hour chasing my tail to find it Another frustration is my partner and my mother and my partners mother! They honestly think they are saving me time by putting my utensils and other kitchen stuffs away. But they completely ignore my system and make new and horrifying places for everything…. He he he I’ve had my two cents worth and fingers crossed for the Ikea massive stuff and thanks for reading, hope one day to do my own blog but work is too draining ATM. Charlotte
Try as I may to clean and tidy as I go , it just doesn’t happen. My desk is a paper and folder mess, drawers are half empty with clothes on the dresser and the laundry has clothes on the floor thanks to teenage son who just throws the slean laundry on the floor looking for something to wear.. HELP !!!
Apart from my husband? I find it hard to stay organised with NO storage in this house – no linen cupboard, kitchen pantry, nothing…
The most frustrating “things”‘ are the other people I live with. As hard as I try to be organised, they have different ideas and can’t see why I need things to be just so! As a full time working mum with a shift working hubby, I need to know where things are and what is happening as I sometimes just don’t have the time for it to not be organised!!!
My parents live with me and Im an organised person and they arent….Im sure Im the only person who has to tell their parents to clean up after themselves rather than the other way around lol
Getting the house organised is easy: it’s watching my wife gleefully do it right, straight after my effort, that drives me nuts.
I find that several times a day our lounge/dining room has turned into a toyroom, bedroom & backyard. It’s amazing how ride-on cars, clothes, pillows, doonas and toys grow legs and make their way into a room that was tidy!!!
clutter on the kitchen bench from open packets to mail to be kept
Trying to find somewhere to put my bits and pieces in my lovely little cottage.
The pantry!! I’m a bit OCD with my pantry but my hubby just puts things back in anywhere and it drives me insane! This morning i was looking for the vegemite and instead of it being with the other spreads he had put it on the top shelf with the chips and bickies!! Not cool.
I don’t think I’m a good wife as the clutter is rife, I just need some help to sort out my life!
The most frustrating is the design of the house doesnt have the proper space to organize the things and all is a messy and having only boy u can imagine isa continue fight and he have a war zone with all the messy so that the hard part of trying to organize , could be handy have the specific furniture or cabinet to orgnize each thing
Towels and linnen all over the place,
makes my house feel like a rat race!
Toys on the floor
need to step over them to get to the door…
Ikea may safe my life
or at least get me out of strife!
Odd socks, I swear the sock monster enters our house every night and steals one sock.
what frustrates me more then anything is i like a clean tidy organised home, and it usually stays this way until we have visitors, children come over and run a muck and make a mess, it annoys me but because its family i cant say anything, i am obsessive compulsive and like everything organised mabey i need some storage just for the kids toys for when they come over!
My 18 year old son. All I do is cook and clean and all he does is eat and make a mess!
Finding the time to keep things in order – if only there was an extra hour in the day. Cooking, cleaning, shopping and looking after the kids take up 110% of the day as a mum!
Teenage allergies! It’s tragic that they’re allergic to putting clothes in the washing machine, dishes in the dishwasher, rubbish in the bin and things back where they belong!
Newspapers & magazines just pile up everywhere, can’t throw out til read, but no time…….. & where to keep them in the meantime?? Then there is the mail pouring in to sort yiiiiiiiiiiiikes, I need HELP!!
The thing I find most frustrating… is having a perfect spot or room … and then the kids come home and destroy it
love ikea and love organisation though – so will keep trying
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