Kitchen must be clean / food is cooked there, and I'm somewhat of a contamination-a-phobe.
Project areas have piles - healthy piles - all over the place. Sometimes project areas means the entire apartment.
When I DO clean, I flip out and not only tidy, but rearrange furniture too!
One thing that I can't stand is closets, drawers, cupboards - "sealed" spaces; out of sight means out of mind. Literally.
That's the only reason (from my perspective) that I'm called messy... though I may be a bit of a hoarder too
SO I say I'm alternately tidy, always aware the location of any item, and hygenically sound. Yet I'm not set up for visitors to randomly appear; where would they sit?