I think I’ve finally figured out the secret to life – BASKETS! Seriously – life changing. I have been struggling for the last couple years in the tiny home to keep things tidy on an ongoing basis. As Kaleia, my five-year-old, grows, so do her messes.
We’ve all come to realise that she is quite the “fashion girl”, who loves to change her clothes as frequently as the trees shed their leaves in a storm. She also loves to stay at home, pulling out all her arts and crafts, splaying them across the floor – beads, glue, glitter, markers and all.
It was driving me crazy! But I never want to stifle her creativity, and I love seeing her play and change and style herself. For a while, I felt like I could teach her responsibility in cleaning up her own mess, so I stopped cleaning up after her altogether. Things got even messier, of course. It wasn’t long before I realised something very important – I was giving her TOO much responsibility that her 5 year old brain couldn’t quite handle yet. I needed an easier way – a better way to teach her and a better way to tidy.
Finally, my Mother suggested I get a basket for her to throw not just her dirty clothes in, but her clean clothes in as well. Another basket? But where to put it in our tiny little bedroom? Well, after giving it a lot of thought, I reorganised her bookshelf with some smaller baskets for toys, and bought a storage ottoman for her makeup table instead of having a useless chair that she never sat on, that just acquired more things on top of it to have to put away.
I am astonished at how effective these simple changes have been! Now, the bookshelf doesn’t need to be carefully organised with toys on display; the toys are just thrown into the baskets based on their category – dolls, animals and dress-ups, easy to distinguish. The clean clothes get swept off the floor in a matter of minutes (maybe even under a minute), thrown into the ottoman, and…BOOM! We have a tidy room in about 2-3 minutes.
Then, as the ottoman fills to the top (or if Kaleia is searching for a particular item of clothing), it gets dumped on the bed, I fold them all at the same time and put them away in about 5 minutes.
The other side of the home (our kitchen and lounge room) is almost the same. There’s one basket for all the toys and clothes that get brought in from the bedroom, and then it’s put away all at once when it’s full.
I feel like a genius! For weeks now, our house has actually remained tidy in between the deeper cleans, and it’s alleviated a lot of the stress that comes with constantly picking up after everyone. Yes, everyone – my 5 year old girl, my 37 year old partner and myself. I’m more calm, the house is more calm, and Kaleia has actually been happily accepting the easy and simple responsibility of not leaving her clothes sprawled out over the floor. She seems to be enjoying a clean house so much that even today, when she spilled some sand out of a bag, she vacuumed it up herself and proceeded to vacuum the rest of the house.
It’s so life-changing, I felt like I HAD to share. If you want to try out some baskets, too, here are the ones in our house, along with a couple other natural options I love and wish I could fit in our home. And if you can buy them second-hand instead, even better.
