A maid service works wonders for the house and for family relationships! We started this several years ago. It's expensive but worth it. Knowing that the maid services comes every Tuesday allows me to be more laid back about how the house looks over the weekend.
If your budget doesn't allow for maid service, try this system a friend of mine uses: Buy several large air-tight containers and/or some attractive baskets. As you move about the house and see things out of place, dirty dishes, clothes on the floor, etcetera, just pick them up and place them in assigned containers/baskets. (Yes, even the dirty dishes!) If you can place the containers in an out-of-the-way spot, like a mud room, that's even better. My friend puts the container with the dirty dishes in her walk-in pantry. When her people start looking for their "stuff" (dirty clothes, shoes, toys, etc.) she sends them to the proper container. Every evening she loads the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. Other than the dirty dishes, she doesn't concern herself with what's in the other containers. When a container is so stuffed full that she can't squeeze in one more thing, (once a month or so) she sorts the things by who they belong to and piles them on the beds of the respective owners, forcing them to have to deal with their stuff. This at least removes the messiness and the clutter from her vision.  |