Archive for the ‘Cleaning’ Category

Progress Report: Day Two in the Bathroom

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008

Day two was much easier for me than day one in spring cleaning my bathroom. I am pretty good about keeping our medications up to date, but I did need to gather everything and get it back in one location.

My medications are grouped by types of illness. I started doing this after I had a couple of nights where I was trying to hunt for medicines and was having trouble finding what I needed. Our drawers are labeled for stomach medications, pain relief/prescription medication, and cold/flu medications. I use a three drawer container for these to make things easier to find. This is located in a dark & cool place in my linen closet on a super high shelf!

We also have a “sniffle kit” for when someone in our family comes down with a cold. In the kit is a little container of tissues, cough drops, Vicks vapor rub, nasal spray, and nose suckers (for little ones). The kit is put together in a smaller container for those occasions. I am, in fact, using it as we speak!

Sound Off: Do you have a system for organizing your medications?

Spring Cleaning: Week Two, Days 1-3

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

This week is a busy one for my family so I have been working all weekend on putting these printables together for our time cleaning in the bathroom. I thought I would post them three at a time (I am still working on the second half) and give you a chance to work ahead, or just give you a chance look ahead at our week.

Our next round of deep cleaning will occur in the bathroom. If you have more than one bathroom, you may need to spread these tasks out over two weeks time. Remember, you can do everything at your own pace- these are just suggestions to help make your life a little easier and to make manageable cleaning goals for your week.

We will be doing progress reports daily and I look forward to hearing how everyone is doing with their tasks. It has been so fun sharing with you my progress and has provided the motivation I need to make my home the organized space that I have always wanted.

Without further adieu, here are the first three printables for our bathroom cleaning agenda:

Today’s Printables

Spring Cleaning Your Bathroom Day One

Spring Cleaning Your Bathroom Day Two

Spring Cleaning Your Bathroom Day Three

In Case You Missed It (Previous Printables):

Spring Cleaning Introductory Page

Spring Cleaning Recipes

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day One

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Two

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Three

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Four

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Five

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Six (newly updated with cabinet instructions)

Progress Report: Day Six in the Kitchen

Friday, March 14th, 2008


(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?

Spring Cleaning: Week One, Day Six

Friday, March 14th, 2008

It is the last day in our kitchen and I am so thrilled to see and hear about everyone’s results. This final day will truly showcase all of your efforts and I guarantee that you are going to want to spend oodles of time in your freshly cleaned kitchen.

Next week we will be tackling another hot spot for when you have guests…the bathroom! This is another source of embarrassment for me and I am looking forward to creating a guest-worthy space. I hope you will join me on our next mission.

If you want to work ahead, here is what I had in mind for our agenda for the bathroom:

1. Organize and inventory bath/beauty products (this is a big one for the CVS addicts, like myself).
2. Organize and clean out the medicine cabinet.
3. Weeding out the unnecessary items.
4. Caulk tub (if needed), clean hard water from fixtures (if needed), and wash shower curtain.
5. Repeat steps necessary in other bathroom(s) of your home (I realize this might take more than one hour, depending on the amount of bathrooms you have)
6. Final tidy- clean the sink, toilet, tub, mirror, and do a deep clean on your floors.

Please know that I am here for any questions, should they arise, and feel free to share your progress through your own blog or email your pictures to me and I will post them to share everyone’s hard work and progress.

If you haven’t joined in the challenge yet, it is never too late to start. Everyone can go at their own pace, you can print out the materials and tackle a one hour task any day of the week. The important thing is to just start! You won’t believe what a difference one hour can make in your home.

Today’s Printable

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Six (newly updated with cabinet instructions)

In Case You Missed It (Previous Printables):

Spring Cleaning Introductory Page

Spring Cleaning Recipes

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day One

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Two

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Three

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Four

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Five


Spring Cleaning: Week One, Day Five

Friday, March 14th, 2008

I hope that you are feeling the same sense of accomplishment that I am and that the printables are providing the motivation you need to reclaim your home.

The last two tasks will be easy tasks, in comparison to our earlier projects. This is where all of your hard work begins paying off and you start to really see how wonderful your kitchen can look.

For day five, we are just decluttering our kitchen for an hour. Tackle the areas that are difficult for you. Can you not sit at your kitchen table and enjoy a meal because it is too cluttered? Do you have a desk or nook that is a hot spot for paperwork and junk mail? Do you have so much stuff that it is hard to see the beauty or the function in the items you have?

It feels good to declutter our kitchen and there are tons of great places where you can donate your stuff. There is Freecycle, Freepeats, Goodwill, Salvation Army, community churches, homeless shelters, and homes that care for unwed mothers.

If you are feeling particularly ambitious, start tagging the items for a future garage sale this summer. After all, why shouldn’t you make a little money for all of your hard work? Tuck the money into a vacation fund or purpose the money towards an item in your home that you TRULY will use.

Throw stuff out with wild abandon! If it isn’t adding to your life, if you don’t have the energy to maintain it, if your kitchen is too cluttered to cook- then CHUCK IT!!

Today’s Printable:

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Five

In Case You Missed It (Previous Printables):

Spring Cleaning Introductory Page

Spring Cleaning Recipes

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day One

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Two

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Three

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Four

Progress Report: Day Four in the Kitchen

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

Well, I don’t know about you, but my fridge was in need some outer attention too. I took everything off of my fridge and gave it a good scrubbing. I got rid of the outer clutter on the fridge and condensed our magnets. All of the little appointment cards and school fliers with reminder dates got logged into the trusty calendar. Pictures got put in a photo box (except for a few) and now I have a clean white fridge.

The top of my fridge was cluttered and I condensed that too. I still have my bread machine, griddle, and some of the children’s art supplies on top. Emily likes to color while I make our dinner so I didn’t want to get rid of these completely. I had a junk container up on top of the fridge that got trashed and I did some decluttering around the outside of the fridge too.

I organized underneath the sink and got rid of a lot of stuff that I didn’t need. I am going to work my way through some of the cleaners that are under there. I organized my dish towels and rags and got everything back into its home.

I got a little carried away so I got a jump on tomorrow’s activities, which include weeding out the rest of the junk in your kitchen. I was in a cleaning frenzy and couldn’t stop!

I think part of it is that we are having a BEAUTIFUL day in Indiana and I am so THANKFUL! I am so sick of snow and yucky weather. To open my windows and let some fresh air into my kitchen is a dream come true. With the spring air blowing in, it was just the motivation I needed to get my kitchen in order.

Spring Cleaning: Week One, Day Four

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008

We are closing in on the end of our time in the kitchen and will only have two more one hour tasks to go. Today we are going to tackle the exterior of our fridge and organizing underneath our sinks.

Just print out the directions for the day and tackle the task at your convenience. If you haven’t joined us yet, it is NEVER too late to start. All of the tasks can easily be completed in one hour and will leave you feeling like a superstar! Good luck, everyone!

Today’s Printable

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Four

In Case You Missed It (Previous Printables):

Spring Cleaning Introductory Page

Spring Cleaning Recipes

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day One

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Two

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Three

Spring Cleaning: Week One, Day Three

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

Day three!! We are halfway through our week of cleaning our first room. Only three more days to go and we can experience a neat-as-a-pin kitchen. I can’t wait to have my friends over in my newly organized space!

Today we are tackling the pantry and/or cupboards. Remember that the tasks are intended to be an hour so do what you have time for, but don’t be surprised if you get carried away and can’t stop. I think it is the getting going part that is so hard for me.

I am off to tackle my pantry right now!

Today’s Printable:


Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Three

In Case You Missed It (Previous Printables):

Spring Cleaning Introductory Page

Spring Cleaning Recipes

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day One

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Two

Sound Off: Do you have a system for organizing your pantry or a way that has made finding what you need a little easier?

Progress Report: Day Two in the Kitchen

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

I will admit it, I am a love to clean my floors and see them all new and shiny. Cleaning the floors is not a problem… moving all of the stuff that is resting on the floors is something I don’t do.

Here are my rugs sitting on the nice cold front step. They got a good shimmy shake and laid out in the sunshine while I busted tail and cleaned my floors.

Once items were moved (surprise, surprise) lots of dust bunnies and yuck emerged. I pressed on, like the soldier I am, and showed them who was boss.

How nice to have gleaming floors to greet me in the morning! Each step brings me closer to the home I am dreaming of. I hope you are having the same experience!

PS- Did I mention how nice this is to do this with friends? I noticed even message board GROUPS were doing it together. That is so wonderful and it is motivating me to keep trudging on. A big hug and thanks to all my friends for linking in to my spring cleaning challenge.

Spring Cleaning: Week One, Day Two

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

I was so thankful for your comments and encouragement on these printables. It had been pretty quiet yesterday and I started questioning if anyone really wanted to do this or would use these at all. Thanks for letting me know that they truly are helpful and that you do appreciate some of these tasks being presented in a smaller format.

I know that an entire day of cleaning just sounded daunting to me. In a way, I feel defeated before I begin. I am trying to chug along with you and my home needs just as much attention (sometimes a whole lot more) than everyone else!

I also recall that when I was a new homemaker, I had no idea how to do ANYTHING in my house. Even something that sounds simple to most (like cleaning out the fridge) was something I was researching how to do. My suggestions are only based on being a new mommy and a new homemaker and not having a clue what the heck I was doing with my very own house. I still sometimes feel like I am just “playing house.” I think that is why this was important for me to share- so someone else isn’t struggling with being a new homemaker!

Today is day two and we are going to work on deep cleaning the floors. I have put together a printable of some ideas for cleaning your floors, although this was tough since each person has a different type of flooring in their kitchen. You will also find a little bit of encouragement and a recipe for a meal- enjoy!!

Today’s Printable:

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day Two

In Case You Missed It (Previous Printables):

Spring Cleaning Introductory Page

Spring Cleaning Recipes

Spring Cleaning Your Kitchen Day One

Sound Off: Do you have a method to your mopping? Any product/mopping solution you rave about? Tell us the type of your floors and how you get them clean!