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Since becoming more of a minimalist, my house is always perfectly clean—everything is in its neat little place, and there is no chaos whatsoever.

Nope.

That’s not how it works.

The reality is, just like any home, ours gets messy. For one, we actually live inside this home while raising two small children. 

The difference since becoming more minimal is just that messes are much quicker to tidy and clean. It takes five minutes to tidy the toys, for example, rather than a whole hour of despair.

Today, I hit the reset button. I tackled some mess, refreshed our space, and got a few things done, and I’m sharing it all with you.

Keep reading below or watch the video:

The living room

This morning, I started in the living room as I wanted to freshen up the space.

I put some toys away, and the place also needed a bit of dusting. I usually use my Purdy & Figg Surface Cleaner for pretty much any surface around the home. Smells great, it’s non-toxic, and we just love using it.

I also did a little dive inside our TV unit. This is where we keep things for parcels—when I get a delivery, I try to save some of the wrappings just in case we sell something on Vinted, for example.

Then I straightened up the sofa and coffee table. This is an area that’s a bit of a dumping ground, to be honest. I mean, we do live in the living room, right? Messes are just inevitable.

And today the kids had their breakfast in here, so I tidied up the coffee table. I also put some tech items away in their basket under the table and sprayed the surface.

It’s amazing how a little spray of the surfaces and a bit of straightening up the things on the sofa, like cushions and throws, makes such a big difference to how we feel in here.

And I also think it helps that we have fewer pillows and fewer throws that get thrown around.

My toddler has been playing with Play-Doh this morning, and I always find Play-Doh just lying everywhere. Today, it was in the hallway. I just put it back where it belongs, as we have two baskets where we keep arts and crafts things. Our Ikea Billy bookcase that we DIY a few months ago is really useful to store kids’ arts and crafts items, and their books and toys.

Our dining table is also a surface that can accumulate stuff—it’s just inevitable with flat surfaces, isn’t it? 

Today, we had some crafts my kids had done together, and some Math books, so I just put those where they belong. Same with the piano books.

I find that having a place where all of these go makes such a huge difference. If we know where things belong, it’s going to be much more straightforward when we do want to tidy.

I finished the area by giving the dining table and the piano a wipe.

Understairs cupboard

This is our command center and where we also store the outbox, a box with all the things we’re going to donate or sell. And it really needed some love and care. It has become a little bit of a dumping ground over the past few weeks.

Here is where we have several drawers that we use to keep batteries, reusable carrier bags, and little random items like that. All these need to have a specific place in our home—otherwise, they clutter up surfaces, get thrown around, or are very hard to find when we need them. So having all of them in one spot here really helps us out.

We also have a little drawer for when we leave the house. In it we keep gum, a lint roller, sunglasses—things like that. And then we also have one for our hats and mittens—just handy to have things in one category organised together.

So today I went through all the drawers and decluttered some of the items.

The kitchen

Just like under the stairs, we have a similar system in the kitchen—every item has its place. The bread goes in this bread bin, for example, that we keep inside a cupboard. That’s where all of our snacks go as well.

And it’s not a perfect storage system, but it’s just about giving everything a home.

First step today, emptying the dishwasher.

One thing that also streamlines my day a little bit is that we’re now storing the plates in a bottom drawer that’s right next to the dishwasher. This way, when I’m unloading the dishwasher, putting the plates back is so much quicker. And dishes can be quite heavy, so having to lift them up into cupboards takes a bit more time and effort.

Then I moved on to our glass food containers. I took them out and put their lids on. I like to organise them like this though it might seem like they take up more space. The thing is, this actually makes life so much easier—when I reach for a container, I know it’s all ready to go. I don’t have to go fishing through all the lids and have them tumble over me. It just makes things a bit easier.

I then wiped all the surfaces, and that was another area of the house done.

The entryway

Our entryway also needed a little bit of attention. For example, there were some random Lego pieces I had found around the living room, so I took them upstairs back to my son’s bedroom.

We had some recycling I needed to put away, and some old drawings that the kids don’t need anymore. I took the ones that I wanted to save upstairs and put them in the folder where we keep the most special memories and the special drawings that they recently did. Anything else can go in the recycling. Kids can create a huge amount of drawings, and there’s no way we can keep all of them.

I put the hair ties and things for my daughter in a basket where they belong. We keep the basket in our understairs toilet, as it’s a handy spot for when we leave the house.

Then I went through the mail to see if there was anything that needed my attention right away or things that I needed to keep in there for a little bit. But anything that’s junk mail or things that we don’t really need anymore goes straight into the recycling.

My daughter’s bedroom

I knew I had quite a bit of decluttering to do in my daughter’s room because she has outgrown some of her clothes. She’s just turned two and has moved up a size.

I straightened up the toys because that’s always needed, and I looked through them to see if there was anything she doesn’t really play with anymore—anything we can maybe donate. 

I also decided to get rid of her humidifier. We used to use it when she was a baby, but I realised we hadn’t used it in probably a year or more. So we’ll give it to somebody else or take it to charity because obviously, we’re not making use of it.

Then I had a quick look through her wardrobe. On the bottom shelf, I had already put away some of the clothes that I had noticed she had outgrown. This way, it was easy now to know which were all the things that needed to go.

I also ordered some new things for her in the next size up from Vinted, so those are supposed to be arriving very soon. 

It’s always such a bittersweet thing to do—we realise our kids are getting older. But it is necessary because we just don’t want to hold on to a bunch of items and clothes that we don’t need anymore. We don’t plan on having any more kids, so there’s no reason to keep them. So we’re either selling, donating, or giving them to friends and making space in our home for the things that we do use and enjoy.

My son’s bedroom

In here, I tidied some Legos that were on the floor as he had played with them earlier. I put them in the drawer under his bed. That’s where all of his Lego goes.

I also tidied up some soft toys and put them back in their baskets. My son has a couple of baskets for soft toys—that’s kind of the container that we use. If the baskets get too full, then we look at maybe decluttering some if he wants to buy any new ones.

Then I made his bed, and honestly, making the bed with a toddler around can be really fun—because you straighten up one thing, and they take something off! I know one day I’ll look back and miss these moments.

I then did a bit of decluttering on his desk—he loves doing artwork and writing his own books, which I think is so cute. He goes through so much paper, but there are lots of little scraps that he doesn’t need anymore. I do keep the things that are more special—like the books he’s written. But all the little scraps of paper can go in the recycling.

Finishing touch, giving everything a quick wipe and preparing his book so that it’s ready for when he wants to work on it again after school. 

And that’s my house reset done. I hope these tips inspire you to tackle your own spaces. Thanks for reading!