Since we are talking about a lot about organization and frugality....

[Julpost]

We have a 1750 sf raised ranch home for our family of 7. I can not, for the life of me, figure out how to make our space work for us. I'm so busy caring for my 1yo and 3 yo that I don't have time to do much else, other than keep us in meals and clean laundry. My house used to be pretty when we first moved in and I only had 2 or 3 dc. Now that we have 5 dc, my house is a disorderly, cluttered, not-very-pretty mess. I haven't had the time or energy to work on it when the kids are sleeping. I really need my sleep or well, let's just say, it ain't nice to be around me during the day! I feel like I'm constantly in survival mode. I'm so behind on things, I just noticed that when my ds took the sheet off of his bed for the laundry, he didn't replace it, he just put a blanket down and slept on that! This isn't how I want to raise my family! It feels like we're in the ghetto or something!

Anyway, I'd so appreciate any tips on how to make a raised ranch work for homeschooling (we're bringing the 3 oldest kids home in the fall!) I'm very excited about that but am overwhelmed about our home environment. Tips for time management, large family management, anything would be so helpful for me right now.

We only have 3 bedrooms, the 3 girls (9, 7, and 3) are in one room, my 12 yo ds is another and in our room is our 1 yo ds. We are planning to move in the next year or so and hope to purchase a larger house then. We would just like to make the best of where we are now. I'm not sure if I should set up the downstairs family room for schooling or just make it an art room and store our books, etc. down there. When we homeschooled before, I always tried to get us to do our work down there and leave the upstairs nice and neat. But we always ended up back upstairs in the dining room. We didn't have a TV in our living room before but we finally got a small flat screen and have it in there now. It's nice because I can hear what the kids are watching and keep an eye on them but it gets noisy now.

Maybe I should post some pics for help. I don't know. The baby needs to get out of his crib now, he's been watching me type and is getting fussy.

BTW, I've loved all the posts about frugality. I think I've become wasteful because I'm just so busy, I don't have the energy to do anything more. But it has inspired me to think more about how I can save money. We just go to Costco for most of our groceries because of the large quantities and it's just so much easier for me. Maybe if I got my house in some kind of order, I'd have more energy for these other things. Or maybe I'll just resign myself to living in a disaster zone for the next 2 years until the youngest is a reasonable 3 yo (my dc always seem to come around and become reasonable people by 3 -3 1/2yo.) I'm kidding, I'd really like to turn some things around now!

[Julie in CA]

I've been where you are, and you're right, it ain't pretty!
It seems like you have a lot of separate issues here, though I confess that I read your post kind of quickly.
*organization
*time management
*cleanliness
*child-busy-ness
First, I'll give you the moral support part:
This is a season of life. (blah, blah, blah, but it's *true*) I think you're right in the thick of things, and it WILL get easier as your older kids become old enough to be much more independent. I gave birth to 5 dc within 7 years, and there were some years that are almost a complete blank for me. They were just hard. My oldest is 17 now, and boy...life is easier. There's light at the end of the tunnel, etc. (another *true* saying!) If you are a spiritual person, now's the time to strengthen yourself with prayer, and I mean many times a day, and in every single moment that no little person needs your attention. I think another great idea is to find a mentor. That would be a mature mom who's experienced in what you're going through and has already pretty much come out the other side. When I had all of my littles at once, I called a woman in my community whom I'd never met, but had heard about from several people. She had 10 kids, homeschooled them all, and had a reputation for being a faithful and great mom. I called her as a stranger, and just flat-out asked her for her advice. In a way, you're doing that by posting here, but it's much better if you can find someone in person.

To move on to more practical matters, if I were you I'd:
Google search crisis cleaning (I think it's flylady that has that posted), and I'd put the kids in pairs to help you carry out the cleaning. Divide up the list, giving yourself a section, your 12yo a section, and your 9 & 7yo a section. Either do it while your 1 & 3yos sleep, or you close them into whatever room you're cleaning. This is your chance to make things look much better very quickly, and this is the time to quickly tidy up any messes that make you feel like you're losing your grip.
Next, I'd make sure that each of your dc have daily responsibilities around the house. I can't remember if you mentioned that they do or not, but now's the time to impose a chore system if you don't have one in place. Yes, it'll be more work to enforce the chores than just to do them yourself, but it's an investment that'll pay off over time. Pick the areas that annoy you the most, and see to it that either you or the 12yo have responsibility for those things. If having unmade beds is your "trigger to depression", put the 12yo on it and explain why it's so important to you (i.e. Mommy gets feeling really down when the beds aren't taken care of...).
If you haven't done so lately, purge toys and clothes. My dh and I lived with our 5dc in a 1000 sq.ft. home for 12 years, and nothing helped morale better than getting rid of everything that wasn't nailed down or in current use. Make sure your dc have minimal amounts of clothes and toys. If all you own is 6 total loads of laundry, you can never get further behind than 6 loads, kwim?
Even when I don't have the time to reorganize everything, I feel much better just making a list of what needs to be done/accomplished. At least take the time to make a list of what you'd like done around the house (in terms of bigger organizational jobs). Then determine which of those you can realistically get done, and which are top priorities. When you've decided which things are top priority, write down the steps to get them accomplished, and make up your mind to do just a couple of those steps per day or per week, or whatever you can handle in small steps.

I didn't really intend to write you a book, these are just the things off the top of my head. Maybe something here is helpful, maybe not.
Wishing you the best,
Julie

[Julie in CA]

I can't believe so many people have read this thread and not given you more replies! I *know* many people here have wonderful advice to give on this topic. I'm just trying to give you a "bump" up so that your post doesn't get lost. :)
~Julie~

[Ohio12]

I can't believe it when I hear of a big homeschooling family that IS able to stay organized and clean all the time. I can barely handle my two little ones and the house! (we have about 1700 sf too)

I actually think that your best bet though is to clean and purge a little each day and not worry too much about arranging this house if you are going to move. If you buy certain shelving or supplies, they may not work in your new house and you will spend so much time getting everything "just so" and then have to move.

The sheets comment made me think that you could train your kids to help and give them certain things to do every day. My mom finally made my sister clean the bathroom when she was 15 and she discovered that my sister had done the whole thing with toilet paper and water! We have to train the kids how to do stuff right IMO! I am trying to train my head in the clouds 5 yo to set the table right, without grumbling and complaining and maybe this will be accomplished by the time she is 6, but then I am never going to set the table again in my life!

[j.griff]

I have been known to take a truck load of laundry to the laundry mat to get caught up on the laundry monster- if you have the funds it's a consideration. It's so nice to have it all DONE! Then you can make the dc put it all away.
I don't know the logistics of functioning in a raised ranch (floorplans and house styles are not my thang, so I don't retain much in the way of terminology, LOL- IOW, I have NO idea what "raised ranch" means or what problems that may cause for you).

I completely agree with that decluttering will help immensely. I'm not sure what has been piling up on you, but here are some things that I've done that have saved my sanity in these past few years (dh was deployed 2x, i gave birth to our youngest during one of those deployments, and survival was the name of the game):
the kids could NOT keep their toys put away, so I just went through and gathered them ALL in garabage bags and put them in the garage to go through later. It was wonderful to not be tripping over toys any more. I let them keep a few stuffed animals (enough to be able to "play" with) because that was a universally liked type of toy, I kept the legos and duplos, but put them in baskets and locked them away so that the dc could only have them if I allowed them- and if the house was messy from other things I just didn't allow them.
I minimized our clothing, so that the laundry couldn't pile up THAT much again. I went through the house and shoved all the loose paper stuffs into a few boxes, we pay our bills online so that wasn't a problem. I stuck the boxes in the garage.
I focused on making the house kid friendly (put the plates and bowls in the bottom cabinets so the DC could set the table and get their own cups when they were thirsty, and they could help unload the dishwasher (we used plastic dishes at that time, the cheap stuff from Wal-Mart).

I found that keeping the floors cleared was VERY helpful to me, I didn't feel hopelessly buried if we could walk through the house without tripping on dirty laundry, toys, pillows, misc. baskets of things that weren't put away.

Even if the dishes were piled up, I was okay if the kitchen floor was clean.

Of course, then I had to get into the habit of doing dishes regularly. I had dd (now 13yod) help by taking over the clearing of the table after meals- I had her empty the dishes and load the dishwasher too, when I was just too busy with diaper changing, bathing, nursing, etc. It's a huge help to involve the kiddos in the upkeep, and it helps them feel needed and important too.

I hope something here is helpful for you.

[tlcmom]

she basically didn't have toys. The girls had a special dolly, and the boys had legos, lincoln logs, and one other thing. They only could get the one (messy) toy out a day. They usually just played outside, and were very happy children, and never seemed bored. She has 9 between 1-18. They were very imaginative and helpful. It really helped her to keep down the clutter. Her home was very clutterfree.