How old are your kids? How many pets? How much time (2 hours, one full weekend, whatever) do you want to spend on this in the next week or so, or on a longer time scale? Do you have a regular cleaner who comes in?

To apple_pie we have two girls 5 and 7. I think we are ok taking our time putting this plan into place, but I think it would help having some game plan. And no cleaner (aside from our robot vac :))...although my mother in law does tend to pick up quite a bit when she is here —roughly 3x a week watching the kids.

@christopher I have four kids ages 5-13. I have learned that kids play better when they have less toys. When they are gone, put all the toys they rarely play with in storage. If they don't ask for it in a month, donate it. get a user friendly storage system for the toys to make it easy for them to clean. I use Ikea's kallax unit as a sofa table. It holds a ridiculous amount of toys! If you don't want to get rid of toys consider keeping 75 percent of them in storage and rotating them through.

Thank you for info. Mrs S's comments are right on the money. Some of the toys look like they may be outgrown already by a 5 and 7 year old, so giving some away (and storing some keepsakes) may be a good start.

The reasons I asked about a cleaner are twofold.

First, if you have to pick up everything before a cleaner can start, then you have a regular schedule cut out for you: every Wednesday night, your family members pick up everything. Since you don't have that external schedule-driver, you have to decide when you want to pick up.

Second, it's important to recognize that cleaning is different from picking up. Cleaning a 3500 square foot house takes several hours, no way around it. If you pick up every single day (half hour for the toys, half hour for the kitchen, etc.), the time spent on picking up once a week (so that Roomba can run around freely) will be maybe an hour or so. If you pick up only once a week, it will take hours.

Kids ages 5 and 7 are old enough to put their own things away. If they aren't asked to do this "forever" (no time limit) but they have to pick up while a 15-minute timer is running, they may be more cooperative. They can use laundry baskets with handles to carry things back to their rooms or the playroom. You can use large laundry baskets to pitch the toys in each room. Even Barbie shoes and Legos can be put in laundry baskets.

I recommend watching Marie Kondo's series on Netflix if you have it. She also has videos on Youtube. Her book is well worth buying.

I agree with the teaching the kids to weed out. My regret is not teaching my 1 child who is now 33 to weed out as we still have stuff she left behind.

There is a general rule of 1 item in 1 item out that some adhere to. A good time to weed is before gift receiving occasions; birthdays, Christmas, Hanukkah, Valentine's etc

I agree with weeding out toys. They need things to play with to keep them busy and keep their imaginations active but they don't need everything all the time. At 5 and 7, they are definitely old enough to pick up their own things. Put everything in a pile in one room and go through things with them 1 by 1. Have one or two bins for keep, one for donate, and one for toss. After you have done that, take the donate bin directly out to the car and the toss bin out to the trash. Now you'll have an idea of what needs to be stored. Look online for toy storage ideas and try to implement them in 1 or 2 rooms. Let the kids know that those toys need to be put away every evening before bed. Set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes and give them that time to get things put away. If they hesitate or miss things, don't argue about it-simply get them up to bed and leave it there. Then, after they've gone to bed, take whatever they didn't pick up and put it somewhere out of sight. If they ask for it the next day, let them know that it wasn't properly put away and you'll be hanging on to it for a week. If enough things get taken away due to their neglect in taking care of them, they'll soon learn to get things picked up if they want to have them available to play with. I also like jck10's idea of 1 thing out for every new thing that comes in. Kids need to learn that they don't own the house and it's not theirs to do with what they please but that they share it and are responsible for helping to keep the space comfortable for everyone there.

Weed out the toys and, do NOT ask them what they think needs to go or stay. You will fall down a deep rabbit hole doing that and get no where. Use your own critical adult criteria for deciding. But, do pare them down.

First the number of things that need a place needs to be paired down. Everything in place means first a place must be established. And, that place that it gets put away needs to be an easy place to put it away. If putting it away involves complicated or convoluted manipulations----it aint' gonna' happen.

Both of my grown kids have or have had homes like this that were covered with and engulfed by kids toys. One is getter older now but the other two are still quite young. I have been trying to tell them that for a while now and they just throw up their hands and act defeated. Maybe someone other than "Mom" call tell them. A few years ago I picked up the stuff out of the living room at the home of the oldest one ,and put it all back into grandsons room and it has stayed that way, for the most part.

But my son's kids have taken over the house. When I am there I try to collect all the pieces of things and put them together. It is a real hunt to sort these things. And, if I put it away somewhere all assembled, it never sees the light of day.

Take charge. Otherwise you will just be raking up stuff off the floor and fishing it out from under the sofa and the floor of the car forever, like they do.

First, get rid of all of those stuffed animals that most kids don't pay any attention too. For the three kids out of ten that have one or two favorite stuffed toy, there are the majority of kids that have way too many and no attraction to any of them.

Kids do not get to control your space I honestly just don’t get the whole idea of kids running the house , Designate a space for them when stuff wanders into your space require it o be returned to their space next time the toy disappears. You are the parent, so parent. I have great kids , grew up to be great adults they did not get to rule my house.

I started early with my son--he learned and helped to cull. If I thought it needed to go but I expected resistance, I'd get it out of sight while I was home alone. He never knew it had gone.

Now he's an expert culler--gets rid of stuff just like his Mom. :)

Kids need to learn to clean up after themselves. And it's your job to teach them. Set a timer: 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever. Everyone picks up at the end of the day or at the end of a play session. Having bins for the toys is one thing, getting them in there needs to be an "automatic" response: kind of like putting the cutlery and dishes away.

Maybe call in a professional organizer?

I think it's also important to recognize that your organizational needs will change over the years. What works now may not work in 5 years.