Perspectives on clutter

Our front room is like a little eddy in the flow of our lives. Things wash up here and remain until some effort is made to move them elsewhere. I know the traditional use for a front room is a place that is always clean to welcome guests. I like that idea, but I'm not good at putting it into practice. More often our front room gets used as a staging area for any large project which includes things exiting or entering the house. Which is most of them these days. Right now my front room...