Dogs Don't Eat Pizza

If you’ve been following along on Instagram or Facebook, you know I’ve been working on refreshing my laundry room. Here’s the sneak peek – almost done!

Of course, what you don’t see is what’s on the other side of the camera.

This is the other side of the kitchen, across from the laundry room. You can see I’ve spackled some holes; I’ve started painting the trim; the stepladder is out, as are dishes and other stuff.

My daughter asked me yesterday when I was going to clean up the dining room, which was holding all the laundry room re-do stuff:

I said that it would be all cleaned up when I finished the laundry room. She said, “That’s ok, Mom, our house is always a mess. It’s because you’re a DIYer.”

Sigh.

To some extent, she’s right. I’m usually doing some project, which means that supplies and mess are out. I am always considering better ways to organize, rearrange, or paint a room. And, with that, comes a mess.

I just didn’t realize she thought we were always living in a mess.

Any home is going to have some degree of mess. We can’t have clean, pristine homes all the time. In fact, my daughter is one of the messiest people I know, ironically enough.

But I’m going to try to be better about containing and cleaning up my mess when I DIY. To that end, I’m setting some goals:

• Keep the mess contained during the project (i.e., try to only mess up one room at a time!).
• Clean up right after the project is done.
• Reorganize the basement to create more storage for project materials there.
• Do one project at a time.

Hopefully then my family won’t feel like they’re constantly living in a work zone.

What about you? Do you create a mess when doing home projects? How do you stay neat and organized? Share in the comments!