I have this sideboard-cupboard thingy in the kitchen. It was an el cheapo purchase a few years ago which has repaid itself several times over, it is a cornucopia of exciting finds: drawers of art materials, socks, notebooks, random stuff, artworks.
My kind of cupboard.
(Exhibit 1)
I painted the top and knobs a bright red last year whilst in Crazy-Pregnant-Lady-Has-To-Paint-Everything-That-Doesn’t-Move phase, with the idea that (as this is the main point of focus when coming into the kitchen) it would be kept tidy and uncluttered and like something from a magazine (or Jane’s house).
Well! Needless to say that didn’t happen. Ever. It was home to a towering mess most of the time, and even when I tidied it off and made it lovely again, within minutes, it was back accumulating “stuff”. So this week I did a little experiment, in order to understand why and how this really happens (I assumed it was some scientific explanation worthy of Dr. How’s Science Wows, to do with magnetic poles and force and geopathic stress lines. Thankfully I didn’t even broach the painfully embarrassing question with Dr. How, as I soon learned a lot about our familial habits thanks to my little study)
Firstly, please note, I’m appallingly untidy. I just am. At any given moment, I have several boxes of projects on the go. At present, I have piles of small canvases, a box of paint and a few watercolour notepads on the “making” table, as well as my sewing machine, doll body parts and my crochet. That’s just one small table. Hence, I don’t have very high ideals for my children.
So, yesterday, on a fine morning, I cleared off the cupboard, and took a photograph [Exhibit 1, above] (in the 10 seconds it took me to turn on the camera, the Pritt Stick had landed) Slowly, within half an hour, things began to drift to the cupboard top again: 
Grace asked me what I was doing, so I explained.
Things went downhill from here.
Grace decided to “help” by doing what she does best: arranging the stuff artfully:
(note the details!!!)
Then she decided to decorate the house for Christmas by sticking dicky-doo-dahs onto the window. And wrapping up presents (which were filled with our belongings) and arranging them, also artfully, with a book of quotes open, to be left there until Christmas. Our kitchen soon began to resemble a large art installation, held together with Sellotape.
And the cupboard, within minutes, started to accumulate. This morning, I took this photo:
…while in the background a little girl was working her way through six pages of stickers, a large sheaf of paper, one pot of glue, pompoms and two tubs of glitter. A small blonde boy was spreading shredded paper on the ground so he could “plough” it with his tractor; two larger boys were making origami and a wee baby was howling to get in the middle of it all.
I’m fighting a losing battle methinks.
Haha i can totally relate to that.We have a similar situation going on with “the yellow”, our yellow drawers that hold everything. A dress up drawer,the bill drawer and a miscellaneous drawer. The question “where’s the….” is answered “on the yellow” an abbreviation from ‘on the yellow drawers’ cos it was too much to say.
Emily, my twin! I too have a gathering. It is on my dresser in the kitchen. The one, as a newly wed, I imagined looking nothing like it does. The one which looks the way I imagined it, once a year when my mom visits.
I have at the moment on it……. that which should be there, plates, cups and fruit. I also have a myriad of loom bands, letters, newspaper, money, bowls, the phone, two pairs of socks, two lunchboxes, key, jewellery, two mobile phones and dog biscuits! I also have four pictures of Daniel and a group photo of my friends.
Love your experiment, I have many similar ones on the go here too as every available surface often resembles your dresser in this house 😉
My house was like this when I was out working – especially the dresser! But now I am at home full time, I find untidiness too stressful, so I am on an endless decluttering mission x
LFABS: I need you to visit me daily 😛
Naomi, some day when the embarrassment has passed, I’ll do a blog post on my every surface that looks like that one!!
Tric **kindred souls** 🙂
Sinead, Oh that even SOUNDS gorgeous… A yellow dresser; I’m on a mission to paint some bit of furniture yellow! (Love the “on the yellow”!!)
I am torn between the gorgeous homeliness of it, and the crazy OCD like need for tidiness!! Lovely post x
Yes! Our “surfaces” are the kitchen counter, the low IKEA shelves, and “the sideboard”. They only get cleared off when company’s coming, and they are inexplicably full again in less than a day.
I have to know, *what* is the thing that the Lego man is sticking out of? A fossil?
Elizabeth, I can’t see the homeliness at all, just the MESS 🙂
Christine, it is an amethyst votive candle holder! It’s beautiful when lit (and turned around so you can see the amethyst!)
Oh yeah, blame the furniture (which is a lovely piece BTW, el cheapo or not)!!!! I am not messy at all and am always clearing up but really the children, who are just like yours it would seem (and yes, there are things stuck to a living room window here for Christmas) aren’t at all as bad as the husband in my house. He is a hoarder and likes to start new piles of things in random places all the time, some day he’s going to get stuck in a load of useless stuff and I’m going to leave him there!
Oh Joanna, opposites attract etc etc!! (Although, in our case, we are the very same. Hoarders and messy: doomed from the start!!!)
Oh, how, this made me laugh. I use to be a neat freak until I married a messy man and had 5 children. Over the last 15 yrs. God has taken away that desire (wish) for everything to be clean & organized. But I love it when it is like that even if it barely lasts for any length of time.
I love neat and organised, despite NOT being born that way!! But yes, I savour the few seconds (SECONDS!!!) it stays neat and organised too 🙂