Is it so wrong to want a clean, organized, beautiful home!!
Just want to vent a little bit here. I'm not a clean freak with OCD or anything, I'm actually quite lazy for the most part. I just want everything to have a place and guests to be impressed when they come over. I moved into my boyfriend's house and just want to make a few changes. It's totally a bachelor pad set up and I want to make it a home. It's him, his 12 year old daughter, myself, my dog, and next month we will have a newborn baby girl. We have a three bedroom, two bath place and of course, me being the adult female, I do all the cleaning. I'm a bit of a slacker some days but I will not live in filth so I get off my lazy ass and get shit done when I need to. I don't really expect much from him because he works full-time and pays all the bills, if he don't want to clean that's fine he does plenty already. As for his daughter, I believe children should have a few chores around the house to help build character and work ethic but with her that's a whole nother struggle. She's a self entitled, "I don't have to listen to you", little shit. She does not know how to properly clean anything and God forbid she pick up after herself without having to be told. All I ask of her is to keep her room and bathroom clean and pick up after herself, might ask her to do the dishes once in a while but that's about it. I have made a little headway on a few things with her, she's getting better about her room and instead of hiding the mess in her closet or something she's actually starting to put shit away where it goes. I do have to tell her to clean her room instead of her just cleaning it up on her own frequently. Today I asked her to clean her bathroom and all she did was unclog her bathtub, picked up her dirty clothes and called it good. Bathrooms have the most germs in the whole house. When I say clean your bathroom, I mean clean off the counter top, wipe it down with some sanitizer, sanitize the toilet, and at least sweep the floor. It's a tiny little bathroom, I could sanitize the whole damn thing from floor to ceiling in about 25 minutes. I had to send her back in there 3 times and she still has not totally cleaned it, didnt sanitize a damn thing, just threw all her shit under the sink, and I have finally given up. Fuck it, it looks better than it did and I don't use that bathroom anyway for that very reason. The rest of the house I keep pretty clean myself, usually any mess that needs picked up is from her leaving plates, cups, clothes, backpack, etc. lying around. It's fucking annoying. We have a pretty good size living room that has so much potential. At the moment we have two futons as our couches and a recliner for seating. Eventually I plan to get a sofa loveseat combo when my finances allow it. I can't wait lol. There's a Bowflex and a treadmill taking up a big chunk of space that does not get used and I want it gone ASAP but the BF isn't ready to part with it so I guess I just have to deal with it until I lose my shit and throw it out myself one of these days. Also taking up some of our living room is a bar, an old recliner, and a chair that we plan to move out into a closed in back porch area that will be our party/kick it spot, we just remodeled that area but we have to finish the trim before we can start to furnish it. If I could just get him to move that stuff out of the living room it would really open things up and I can turn it into an awesome living room with plenty of space. I have a plan of how I want to arrange everything and decorate it and it would make me so happy and I would feel so wonderful and proud if I could just get it done. With my luck I'll probably be 80 before that happens though. We have a large home on a large property and I just want to do it justice and make it a home. I know that he and his daughter have lived here for many years with things just the way they are and change is hard but I want a home that I can be proud of. A home that when you walk in the door is just welcoming and comfortable and beautiful. I may not live in a grand mansion but there's no reason I can't clean this place up, get it all decorated nicely, put things in order and actually feel like I do.
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Comments
Have you talked to your BF
Have you talked to your BF about what you want to do with the house?
I get that you want it to feel like a "home", but keep in mind that it already feels like "home" to him and his daughter. Change is going to be hard for them, just like it would be if you had established a home how you like and then were asked/told to make changes.
You'll need to find a compromise unless he just doesn't care. And if he doesn't care, then you are going to be on your own with making changes. If he does have an opinion, you two will just need to figure out how to mesh your styles - or, find a place for one of you to have your space while the other has theirs.
Regarding your SD, that sounds fairly typical of a 12 year old. It's constant reminders and breaking down EXACTLY what you need/want done. Plus, if Dad has let her get away with it for 12 years, it's going to take a long while to get her to do it on her own, if she ever does.
We've talked about it many
We've talked about it many times and he has agreed to make changes. It's just a matter of actually getting it done. He only gets weekends off and usually just wants to go hang out with the guys, which I totally get. So all the stuff cluttering up the living room we'll have to find a day we both have off and maybe get a few buddies to help with heavy lifting to get it cleared out. Guess I just have to be patient and eventually we will get it done. I would just like it to be done before the baby gets here but I'm running short on time for that.
I feel for you. A lot of the
I feel for you. A lot of the arguments me and DH had in the beginning of our relationship was about him not cleaning up after himself. There's a different betwee him coming home and having to mop and him putting up the bread when he's done making a sandwich kind of cleaning. I expect the latter. I expect him to do basic human pick up. He is a lot better now. As for the skid consider this, do you really want her to do it? I'm not talking about her room, because that is her living space. I am talking more about the bathroom. I imagine her bathroom is the bathroom the guests will use when they come visit. If she cleans it, it will not be worth all the fighting for her to eventually do it begrudgeningly and then you having to go back over it all over again anyway. I just say skip passed all of that and go straight to the end. OR you can do what I did and divide to conquer. Me and DH have separate bathrooms. I was so tired of SS and SO leaving the seat up or peeing on the seat that I told them the guest bathroom is theirs and the bathroom in the main bedroom is mine. They are responsible for keeping theirs clean (dirty laundry, toiletries, scrubbing) and I keep up with mine. In this case maybe your DH and Skid should share the bathroom so he can either help her keep it clean OR delegate some chores to her.
This is never going to be
X
Why does the adult female
Why does the adult female need to do all the cleaning? DH AND the skids help me. The skids even have chore charts on the wall.
I agree with what was said above about it being THEIR house. It's best to start fresh so you don't fall into either the "all their stuff with a couple of my things" trap OR the "you changed too much and now they aren't happy with it" trap. That gives you both the opportunity to make decisions about the place and make it an OUR place.
If that's not possible (which a lot of the time it's not, so that's okay) then you have to talk to your BF, AND realize the change will happen slowly. Change is hard for people, so I agree you should live somewhere you're proud of and for goodness sake your SD should clean up after herself! However, you can't expect that to happen overnight, or for it to be easy for them to part with their "norm." I still can't get DH to take all the junk off the walls in OUR place (we got a new one...). He put it up like the second we got there (football stuff up the wazoo). People get attached to things, focus on slow and steady and try some smaller changes before working up to the big ones.
I moved in with DH and the
I moved in with DH and the SDs (then 7 and 9). The house was a disaster. I won't go into it, it's all on my early blog posts.
I had an agreement BEFORE we moved in what I would and would not tolerate (i.e. shared spaces must be kept clean, other places clean enough not to attract rodents - a problem in that house to begin with). I made sure I followed up with my part and he did pretty well on his part. The SDs took more time....basically until
We moved into our own home. Since DH is not a motivated house-cleaner and I do the majority of it, my rules apply, period. I do have a house cleaner come in every other month or so for my own sanity and he pays for another person to help with SDs bathroom (although it's much better since SD14 moved out - SD12 has cleaned it well on her own and I'll make sure she does again in another week). DH gets aggravated with me, but he does agree he puts off cleaning for too long - it's been 5 years of negotiation and work but it does pay off.
My advice: Don't try to change everything at one time! Get one change implemented and ongoing, then add another. Slowly and make sure your DH is on board first.
Yikes, I sense some crazy
Yikes, I sense some crazy entitlement, it's your boyfriend's house- you aren't married, you moved into their house, it sounds like you aren't working or paying for it. Your 'idea' is great in theory but either a) find a new house together or b) be ready to wait until you have some skin in the game before making decisions on HIS house.