(Editor’s Note: I wanted to get this up for the weekend so you could see how awesome everything turned out. I am working feverishly on our next set of printables- happy weekend, everyone!!)
To say that I feel like I am about to burst when I look at my kitchen would be an understatement. I can’t believe how much I was able to accomplish this week and with only one hour for each day. This was as much of an experiment for me as it was for you. I don’t have a lot of time to devote during the week towards cleaning, but I was determined that I could make one hour each day (in addition to regular duties around the house) work for me.
The real challenge has been doing this AND putting together the printables for each assignment, while documenting my progress. I am planning to get a jump start this weekend because I want to continue supplying you detailed instructions and I want these to be reused and available to our readers all year long. We will be finding a spot for these, don’t you worry! The traffic on our site has boomed bigger than ever before so I know this is something that moms want!
I finished the day off by putting some pretty table linens on and bringing a little spring into our house. The flowers were already in our kitchen so I just added a white tablecloth, a sage green cloth napkin to center my cake stand, and then tied a green bow on the stand. This weekend I will bake something for our centerpiece.
If you have a computer in your kitchen, you could even put some super spring-y pictures up from Flickr and add even more freshness into your house. My husband finds the coolest stuff to put on there!
One of my proudest organizing moments, in my kitchen, was finally making space for my cookbooks. I love knowing that they have their own home now and that I won’t have to go to another room to get them. Getting rid of the clutter in my kitchen freed the space I needed to accomplish such a task. My clean fridge was also a highlight for me (as lame as it sounds) just because I don’t make the time to clean on top, the front, and inside of it the way I should. It is the little things in life.
My biggest challenge had to be getting started and tackling my pantry. I have so many other things that I was thinking that I could be doing if I wasn’t doing that. I am proud that I pushed myself, otherwise, I would have never appreciated my space half as much as I do now!
Finally, here is my reward for all of my hard work. A delicious and icy cold Diet Coke. Yum! I don’t drink a lot of soda and I rarely buy the brand-name stuff so this was a true delight. I zoned out and caught up on all of the blogs that I had been missing for an hour after I cleaned.
Life is good!
Sound Off: What was your greatest reward this week? What was your biggest cleaning challenge?
Looks great – I haven’t quite joined the cleaning challenge but will work on it during my kids’ spring break (when they’ll be visiting granny’s)…You’ve given me inspiration and motivation to get my own diet coke too!
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Amy – this is amazing! What a great idea – and your kitchen is so pretty! We are saving up for a kitchen remodel, so I am gathering ideas and I love how bright yours looks with the white cabinets and pretty counter tops. I plan on printing all of your tip sheets, and saving them to use over and over. Thanks for an amazing site!
-Mandy
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I’ve been getting such awesome feedback on your spring cleaning series from my readers at Today’s Homemaker. Tremendous job!
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Mandy- Thank you SO much on the compliments on the kitchen. We didn’t remodel, only painted existing- here is a link to our kitchen makeover. It was a lot of hard work, but I am so proud of the cheery results.
Here is a link:
http://tinyurl.com/34vhxo
Andrea & Sarah- Thank you so much for your encouragement an for spreading the word!! I am so proud and I will continue trudging on. It helps to know that I have friends out there doing it with me
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I just barley started cleaning mine yesturday, but did manage to get a big chunk of it out of the way. Yeaaa for me
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Did I miss the day when you cleaned your cabinets? I have wooden ones and always use a wood cleaner on them to keep them nice and shiny. It would probably go well on the day you did the outside of your fridge or maybe today since you did your furniture.
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Becca- You are right, I didn’t include that. Duh! We just painted our cabinet so I didn’t need to clean the outside of them. I will add that to our last day when we “officially” post these!
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Here are the added instructions- I will update the PDF right now…
Wipe the exterior of your cabinets. For solid wood, veneer, or laminate simply wipe the cabinets with a damp cloth and dry them with a soft dry towel. For heavier grime, you can dip a cloth in a solution of one gallon of water mixed with ΒΌ cup dishwashing soap and gently wash the exterior.
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Your kitchen looks great, Amy!
I’ve been putting in about 45-60 minutes minutes daily the last 2 days and it has made a difference!
I’ve been able to clean and organize my pantry, spices, clean 2 windows, wash both curtains, iron/hang them & iron some special items. Biggest challenge? Windows…I don’t like doing them, but breaking it down into 1 or 2 at a time is much more manageable. Greatest reward? Very happy to take care of things that I’ve not been able to do for a while.
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Thanks for all your help getting me organized and clean!
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Your kitchen looks great! I love the adding of the spring flowers to your table. I love the springtime. Thanks for the motivation…maybe I will start on the kitchen tonight.
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Good job, Amy. I loved seeing your kitchen–so cute, and so clean!
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Brava! Brava! The flu has me down right now and so I have abandoned the challenge temporarily, but I’m inspired even as I sit here with my fever breaking and can’t wait to feel well enough to…clean? Something sounds wrong about that! LOL
Michele
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This has been so much fun! Did I just SAY that? Cleaning…fun?
But it has been. Thanks so much for all the hard work you have put into this, Amy.
Greatest reward…Just feeling so good about myself at the end of the day. And my kitchen looks superb!
Biggest challenge…cleaning under the sink. Not hard, but…that under the sink area always gives me the creeps. Yuck. Glad you “made” us do it, or I wouldn’t have!
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Great job, Amy! You are amazing! I can’t believe you found time to clean your own kichcen, create all those printables, plus encourage the rest of us!
My biggest challenge this week was having to throw out all the expired food I found in my pantry. I was so mad!
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I love the idea of your challenge. Now I need to go back and read the rest. I used to keep up with my house pretty well, but since I started schooling this year, we are in a war. And the mess is winning. I have created a schedule which is helping me keep up. But I am due some deep cleaning!
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THAT looks awesome and I so love your reward! I love me some fructose! My biggest reward was and is cleaning my cupboards!
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I had to go to Costco and get some Snapware to organize my pantry. It worked great!!! I am going to Goodwill tomorrow with all of the glasses and mugs that we don’t need. Thanks for the recipes too!!!
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