Kind of worked out for me, as we homeschool all of them, and when the youngest one was that age, the oldest was capable/interested enough to "do school" for me! Although it did interfere a bit with the tween's own rate of work completion...
Anyway, I think the key was having our own little table for work, our own little math workbook (we used Singapore Math Essential Math K), our own little set of Bob books, our own little set of crayons, pencils, protractor/compass set (apparently an essential of "real school"!), our own set of math manipulatives (mostly not specially-purchased). You get the picture.
I work full time and homeschool the older ones, too, so we definitely have to say no quite often. But as I said, I can also delegate some activities to the older ones. And, yes, if we have no vermin, then the house is considered clean.
