Tag Archives: home

The best times to tackle deep cleaning projects

Most people feel motivated to clean and reorganize in the spring. Since most of fall and winter is spent indoors, I prefer to prepare for the long winter hibernation by cleaning, purging, and reorganizing. I’ve been creating a to-do list in my head of things I’ve been putting off all summer, and it got me thinking about how I could make things easier on myself. Is there a most convenient time to tackle the household chores we all dread?

Here are some ideas I’ve come up with. I’d love to hear how you make this stuff easier on yourself.

Clean the refrigerator after vacation.

I tend to be a little OCD about old food in the refrigerator — I throw away uneaten leftovers and expired condiments every week on the night before our trash is picked up so funky food doesn’t hang out in the fridge or our trash can for too long. Giving the fridge a good deep cleaning is a bit more challenging, though, since it’s full of food most of the time. However, right before we leave town for a vacation, I always do a major purge and try to leave the fridge mostly empty so we don’t come home to funky smells. Before restocking at the grocery store when we get home, the first thing I do is take out each shelf and give it a good scrub in warm soapy water, double check condiments and toss anything old or expired, and scrub down the nooks and crannies that aren’t visible when the fridge is stuffed with food.

Clean out the pantry before grocery shopping.

You might be surprised how much food is actually available in your kitchen. Hunt for meal ideas in your canned foods, throw away anything that is no longer edible, and put foods that need to be eaten as soon as possible at the front. Taking stock of your pantry before grocery shopping will also save you some money since you’ll be less likely to buy an item you already have on hand.

Reorganize closets when the seasons change.

Closet space in limited in our 1970s ranch, so we only keep current, in-season clothing in our closets. Out-of-season clothes are stored in giant plastic tubs in the guest room closet. When the weather changes each season, we swap them out. If you follow a system like this one, that seasonal clothing swap is the perfect time to purge things you don’t need and reorganize your space. Take a good hard look at each item before you store it for next season — did you wear it this year at all? If not, it’s probably time to donate it.

For bonus points, use the bedroom closet swap as an excuse to clean and reorganize other closets and cabinets in your house. If you tackle them twice a year, you’ll avoid a huge pile-up that will eventually require heavy-duty cleaning.

Clean your work space on Friday afternoon.

Whether you work from home or in an office, Friday afternoon downtime is the perfect time to purge or file paperwork and clear clutter. If there’s something that will need attention first thing Monday morning, put it front and center on your desk to remind yourself to get right to it after your relaxing weekend.

How do you make deep cleaning projects easier? Please share!

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One room at a time challenge – Laundry room

After spending the weekend really thinking about my priorities as far as time management goes, I made the decision that decluttering our space should be close to the top of the list this summer. We keep our living areas pretty tidy (most of the time), but behind closed doors, I’ve let clutter take over. There’s really no excuse for it since we’ve barely lived in this house a year. I shudder to think how bad it will be in 5 years if we don’t start tackling it now.

In a burst of motivation on Sunday, I decided to start with our laundry room. I jumped at the chance to take advantage of it during Judah’s afternoon nap so quickly that I completely forgot to shoot a before picture. It’s not that I’m embarrassed to show you what it looked like (well, I am, but I’m willing to do it). I honestly just forgot. Doh. Rest assured, I will remind myself to snap that before picture for future projects.

Since it’s a tiny room, it only took me a little over an hour to whip it into shape. While we were in the process of painting our house, we let the shelf behind the washer and dryer turn into a depository for paint supplies. Months later, it was still crammed with paint cans, brushes, and old towels we’d used to clean up. It was crammed so high with junk that it fell over onto the dryer about once a week. So we picked up all the paint supplies, and relegated them to an unused cabinet in the garage.

Next to the sink, I’d saved a ton of used plastic bags (they fit our bathroom trash cans perfectly, so we reuse them as garbage bags) as well as some broken down diaper boxes that I was convinced I could repurpose. I recycled most of the diaper boxes and crammed the plastic bags into a reusable bag, which I hung from the hook I used to use for my cloth diaper wet bag. (We switched to disposables full time a few months ago when cloth diapering a toddler just became too gross.)

Speaking of cloth diapering, I still had a laundry basket full of diapers taking up space in the laundry room. Since I plan to use them again someday when Judah has a little brother or sister, I packed them up in a couple of those diaper boxes and packed them away in storage.

I also gave the shelf we use for cleaning supplies some attention. Everything was stuffed on there with no method to the madness, and there were more than a few empty bottles even. So I rinsed and tossed the empty bottles into the recycling bin, and then organized the shelves — laundry stuff on top since we use it most, cleaning supplies in the middle, and rarely used or bulky items on the bottom shelf. It’s much easy to find what I need now.

The laundry room is between the kitchen and the den. Both the laundry room and the den are blocked by a gate, so Judah can’t get back there for now. I hate that the laundry room is open to view, though. Since we moved in, I’ve wanted to hang a curtain across the doorway to make our laundry room a little more private. Since this little reorganization cost $0, I finally went ahead and picked up the curtain and rod. It’s just a $20 curtain panel secured to the doorway with a $5 tension rod (it’s actually a shower curtain rod). I’m pretty happy with how it separates the utility room from the den and keeps our “dirty laundry” out of view — especially since it cost only $25.

Is there a room that’s been driving you nuts? There’s no better time to tackle it than today! This whole endeavor only took a little over an hour. I’m kicking myself for not doing it sooner, especially since it’s was so cheap and easy. Sometimes all a room needs is a little spiffing up, and it feels like a whole new space.

What I did on my summer vacation (without social media)

Let me just preface this by saying that I honestly believe we would have gotten just as much done this month even if I wasn’t taking a break from social media. I’ve been planning all of this stuff since we moved into our house (a year ago this month), and we finally had the time, money, and motivation to get all of it done. The sudden surge of productivity has more to do with both of us having a month off work.

With that said: whew. It has been a crazy month. In addition to visitors or travel plans every single weekend this month (I am not exaggerating), we finally started ticking things off our huge to-do list around the house.

We kicked it off by painting the den and repainting the dining room. We already painted the dining room the same color as the kitchen — pale yellow — but I didn’t like it next to the light blue in the living room. The two colors next to each other reminded me too much of an Easter egg. So we painted the dining room mocha. The den is a fabulous green color — Valspar’s Irish Paddock.

Dining room before:

Dining room after:

And here’s a shot of the mocha and blue side by side — much better than the yellow, trust me:

Den before:

Den after:

The den functions as a dual office, craft room, a place where we can relax and read or watch movies by the fire after Judah’s in bed (there’s a desktop computer off camera that we use for that), and a depository for all things not baby proof (it’s the only non-bedroom in the house that isn’t part of the open floor plan, so we’re able to gate it off). It’s cluttered, but cozy, and I suspect we’ll be able to eliminate a lot of the clutter when we move the bookshelf out and put all the books in the built-ins in the living room.

Now that we’re finished painting, we’re slowly starting to hang some things on the wall. First, we hung a family photo gallery in the living room.

The frames are the Virserum line from IKEA, and they’re dirt cheap — $1.99 each for 4×6 and 5×7 frames, and $4.99 for 8×10 frames. The gallery includes three 4×6, three 5×7, and two 8×10 frames. I love the way these frames look, but a word of warning if you decide to go with IKEA frames: they really are cheap. The hook in the back is really just a serrated edge, and when we hung them with ordinary nails, the three frames on the right fell off the wall when Judah pounded on the other side of it from his bedroom. We replaced the nails with 3M picture hangers, and they’re much more secure now.

On the other side: collages.

The collage on the far left is all photos taken before Judah was born, the one in the middle is a wedding photo, and on the right is pictures taken in the first 4 months after Judah was born.

And a shot for perspective:

I also framed postcards from major cities where we traveled in 4×6 frames and hung them in the hallway. Hopefully someday we’ll have enough to fill the other side of the hallway, too.

Amsterdam, Paris, and London:

Springfield (our first trip together as a couple — my husband is a huge Lincoln fan, and we’re both nerds); Asheville, NC; and the Bahamas:

New York, St. Louis, and Washington DC:

The Outer Banks, NC; Seattle, and Chicago:

 

We have several more postcards, but I couldn’t figure out how to fit them on the wall yet, so we’re waiting until we collect a few more to start hanging them on the other side.

It may not seem like a lot, but all of the painting was done in the late evening (and early morning hours) after Judah was in bed. And you wouldn’t believe the work that goes into hanging and positioning a multiple-photo gallery. Tony measured, calculated, and leveled photos for what seemed like forever. He threatened to frame the scratch paper full of numbers with measurements and calculations next to the gallery just so show people it’s not as easy as it looks. Heh.

We also made a huge dent in the ridiculous jungle in our backyard. Tony and his dad removed several hundred pounds of brush from the overgrown plants in the back, and I planted another herb garden this year. I really hoped to plant a bigger vegetable garden, but between my crazy 18 month old, my part-time teaching job, and my other part-time job freelancing, I just don’t see how I’ll have the time. I’ll be lucky if I can manage a small herb garden.

If you would have told me it would take over a year before our house really started feeling like our own, I wouldn’t have believed you. But it really does take time — and money. It seems like every time we do a small project on the house, it ends up costing at least a couple hundred dollars.

It’s overwhelming to know that this is only the beginning. We still have too many empty walls in the house to count, bleak empty flower beds in the front, an orange master bathroom to paint (eventually), a wall of built-in bookshelves to install (hopefully this fall!), and the million other to-dos that are sure to pop up as we go along. It really is never-ending. I imagine we’ll finish right around the time that we decide to sell. :)

Empty walls

It’s been almost a full year since we bought our house (can you believe it?), and I STILL have nothing on my walls. You think I’m exaggerating, but sadly, no. Literally, the only thing I have hung on my walls is a television (it became evident that our TV wasn’t going to be able to stay on a table shortly after Judah started walking) and a dry erase calendar in my kitchen. No art, no pictures, no shelves. Nothing.

In my defense, we have been “going to paint” since we moved in. Our walls are plaster, so I didn’t want to deal with filling in nail holes and moving things around when we finally painted. But now that the living room, dining room, and kitchen have fresh paint, I’m starting to feel more guilty every day about my empty walls.

On a recent trip to IKEA, I bought a ton inexpensive photo frames, and I have so many great pictures from our travels and Judah’s first year that it should be a cinch to decorate my living room walls with family photos. But every time I think about it, I just get overwhelmed and put it off for another day. I need to choose which photos I want to include in the gallery (out of literally thousands), make prints in the right sizes, and then decide which configuration to hang them. I’m usually pretty decisive, but when it comes to this sort of thing, I second guess myself until it makes me crazy.

The kitchen and dining room are not so easy. I don’t want family photos on those walls, but that leaves me wondering what to do instead. I don’t typically like store-bought art (not at the prices I can afford anyway), but I sort of like the idea of cheap framed prints. Here are some ideas I’m tossing around.

Framed post cards

I’ve bought post cards for each of the cities Tony and I have traveled together since we started dating, and I want to frame them and hang them somewhere in the house. I don’t know if they’ll fit in the dining room, and definitely not the kitchen, but I might hang them in the hallway or den? We still need to paint the den, so I’ve got some time to decide what to do in there.

Kitschy kitchen prints

I found these kitchen prints on Pinterest, and I love them. They’re available for free download in these colors, and customizable through the artist’s Etsy store for just $5. I have a tiny bit of wall to fill between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling, and I think they might look cute there.

All You Need is Love prints

I think these cute prints will work nicely in the dining room, and since we’re big Beatles fans, it’s even better.

Kitchen conversion chart

I am in love with this measurement conversion print from Chasing Delicious (available for purchase for just $24!), but I don’t know if the red will work well in my yellow kitchen, and I’d also like it to be a bit bigger than the largest available size (11×17). I’m on the hunt for a similar large print in colors that will work better in my kitchen.

Maps

I’ve seen ideas all over Pinterest with framed maps, and I’d like to do something like that with the three major cities where we’ve lived. I want something more creative than just framing the maps, though, so I’m still hunting around and thinking it over.

I want creative but cheap wall decor, and it’s turning out to be much harder to find/create than I expected. Frames alone cost a fortune!

What ideas can you share with me? I’m dying to know what’s on your walls.

Spring fever

I’ve been struggling with the adjustment now that I’m a “working mom.” Aren’t we all “working moms,” though? Whether you chase your kids around all day or clock in at an office, being a mom is hard work.

My classes started at the beginning of March, so now I’m balancing my responsibilities at home with responsibilities to my students. I’m still so thankful to have the opportunity to earn income and still “stay at home” with my son for most of the day, but that means I do a lot of my work at home. Trying to work with an active toddler running around presents its own challenges. The only time I can “work” is when he’s sleeping — during his short afternoon nap, and then after bedtime.

Unfortunately, the time change pushed his bedtime back to 8:30 p.m. (Grumble, grumble.) Squeezing all of my extra class work into my busy days has taken some adjustment — which is why this blog has been a little quiet lately.

It doesn’t help that just as I’ve become busier, we’re entering the season when I feel the urge to be most productive. This time of year is when I come out of my winter haze and start noticing all the places around the house that need to be scrubbed, organized, and decluttered. Add to that the three rooms we still need to paint and all of the decorating things I want to do (we’ve been in the house almost a year, and there’s still nothing on the walls), and I’ve got a pretty unreasonable to-do list on my hands.

Right now, I’m working on taking my own advice. I’m breaking my to-do list into pieces and prioritizing. If I can take it one thing at a time, I might finish everything I want to do by the end of … the decade? The century? I’d love to finish by the end of summer, but that’s probably a pipe dream.

Since my list includes tasks in pretty much every room of the house, I’m breaking it down by room. Our plan is to work on one room at a time cleaning, organizing, decluttering, and decorating. I won’t bore you with the point-by-point breakdown of what we need to do — it’s ridiculous. I will say, however, that when I think about it one room at a time, I feel significantly less overwhelmed. I think if I can focus on just the to-do list for a room at a time, it’ll be easier for me to keep track and stay motivated. I plan to share with you what we accomplish as we work on each room.

I’m still deciding where I want to get started, but at this point, I’m leaning toward starting in Judah’s room. Before he was born, my nesting instinct was in overdrive, and everything was neat and tidy and in its place. Now? It is overrun with toys and clothing, and the bottom drawer of his dresser is so broken it’s no longer functional. I feel a knot in my stomach every time I fold his laundry, because I know I’m going to have to wrestle with that stupid drawer. The closer he gets to climbing out of his crib, the more nervous I feel about having a heavy, full-sized dresser in his room, so I’m looking for an alternative method to store his clothes.

What’s on your to-do list this spring? I’d love to hear how you’re tackling your spring cleaning and organization lists!

 

Why didn’t anyone warn me?

Our original plan was to start painting in mid-March, but that was when our furniture was scheduled for a late March delivery. Last week, I received a surprise phone call from Pottery Barn — our furniture was coming early! I really wanted the living room painted before the furniture arrived, but Tony had a stack of essays from three classes to grade, so it wasn’t a good weekend for him to devote to painting. “How hard can it be?” I said. I decided to go for it and get started, even if it meant I’d be doing a lot of it by myself. Big mistake.

We chose a pale blue for the living room and hallway, so I figured it would make sense to do both at the same time. Since I knew painting was going to be harder with a toddler running all over the place, I thought I’d take it “easy” and take a whole weekend to do each room. Most of our work was done after Judah was in bed and late into the night. Tony painted large walls with the roller while I worked on detailing and trim. During the day, Tony graded papers while watching Judah, and I taped, primed, and painted the hallway by myself.

After taping everything and applying the first coat (primer tinted to 25% the shade of the final coat), I didn’t get to bed until 3:30 on Saturday morning. I love our huge living room, but GAH. Painting it took FOR.EV.ER.

I was surprised at how well the primer covered the dark orange color on the walls. We bought a fancy “high-hiding” primer, because I was hoping to avoid a second coat of paint, which was more expensive than even the fancier primer. Despite everyone and their brother warning me that I shouldn’t even bother trying to paint with anything but Sherwin Williams paint, we went with Valspar primer and paint from Lowe’s. I was happy with its coverage, and I really don’t believe that fancypants Sherwin Williams could have done much better on the dark orange, only we would have paid a lot more.

We used this contraption at the recommendation of my parents. We loved it for the first coat. After disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling it, though, it was more hassle than help. Maybe I broke something when I took it apart, but the stupid thing was falling apart as I tried to paint with it and splattering paint EVERYWHERE. We’ll probably try an ordinary roller and tray when we paint the rest of the house.

A hard lesson learned: even if you have laminate floors, invest in drop cloths. I’m going to be scraping tiny splatters off my floors for weeks. Ugh.

Another piece of advice: don’t forget to factor in prep time and the expense for supplies. We went through almost three rolls of painter’s tape to prepare the room, and it took over 2 hours. I didn’t add up the cost of just the supplies, but after buying the roller, a nice trim brush, tape, replacement rollers, and plaster patch, it added to our total substantially.

Tony and I pride ourselves on our ability to work through stressful situations as a team without taking out stress on one another. All of that went out the door this weekend. During my ugliest moments, I’m pretty sure I would have dunked his head in a bucket of paint if I thought it would fit. It wasn’t his fault, but I was just done, and all I could think about was the fact that we still had another coat, and three rooms to paint after that.

In the end, I’m happy with the color. It probably needs another coat, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it this weekend. I may try to go over a few visible streaks with a brush instead of taking out the roller again. Or I may go back over it in a few weeks if it continues to bother me. Tony swears he doesn’t think it needs another coat. I think he’s just afraid I’m going to make him paint it again. I’ll share some after pictures after our furniture arrives on Wednesday.

Painting is hard, grueling, stressful work. Much harder than I thought it would be. I was feeling guilty for derailing my diet by eating pizza for dinner Friday night, and then I Google searched the number of calories burned while painting — over 300 an hour. I spent every waking hour painting this weekend, so I’m sure I burned off the extra calories at LEAST.

One room and hall done — three more rooms to go. I good news is, the remaining rooms are MUCH smaller with less surface to cover and more detailing, which isn’t as exhausting or messy as rolling. I still don’t know how I’ll survive it.

Painting plans

Let me preface this by saying I’ve never painted anything in my life. Unless you count finger paints. But honestly, I don’t think I used those much either. I always preferred crayons, and so did my mom (for obvious reasons). Since scribbling colored wax on the walls and calling it good isn’t an option for our home, I’m nervously venturing into the world of interior paint.

When we bought our house, it had been newly renovated. The paint was fresh, even if it isn’t a shade I would pick myself. I don’t love it, but I could live with it, so we decided to leave it alone for a little while. As you can see in the photo on the right, most of our main living space is orange. Orange. This has become decidedly more obnoxious the longer we’ve lived in the house, so it’s time for the orange to go.

Part of our motivation comes from the fact that we recently purchased new furniture for the living room — a Pottery Barn Comfort Roll slip-covered sofa, armchair, and ottoman. It should be delivered in the next few weeks. While the Pottery Barn furniture of my dreams is light in color, that obviously would have been a really dumb move with a toddler running around. Instead, we opted for the darkest shade they have — espresso. Here is the couch:Because the furniture is so dark, we want something light for the walls. But I’ve lived with off-white walls for most of my life, so I really want some color. The master bedroom is a pleasant light mocha color, so we’re leaving it. Judah’s room, the guest room, and the guest bathroom are neutral off white, so we’re holding off on painting those, too. For now, we’re just doing the living room, kitchen, and den.

The kitchen is super orange right now.

And the den sort of looks orange in this picture, but it’s really kind of an orangey pinkish coral color.

Since we have an open floor plan, I want the colors to coordinate with each other. We’ve pretty much decided on a pale blue in the living room, light yellow in the kitchen, and light green in the den. We’re still looking at swatches and trying to make decisions about shade, which seems impossible with all of the options available to us. But I feel pretty good that we have it narrowed down to those three colors.

Basically, I’m looking for tips, shade selections, favorite paint brands — anything you can tell me about interior paint would be much appreciated. I’m hoping we can get this done without screwing up too badly the first time, so I need expert advice from my readers!

Resolutions for 2012

My standard resolution for, oh, 10 years or so has been “eat healthier and lose weight.” So far I’ve only stuck with that resolution for 1 out of 10 years. Pfft. I suck.

I’m not giving up on that resolution. Lord knows I have more weight than ever to lose this year. But starting last year, I decided to focus on other things, too. Things that are easier, more fun to accomplish, and will improve my life in other ways. Here’s what I want to accomplish in 2012.

Organize paper clutter.

I have complained about the mountains of paper that stack up around our house for years. I need to finally find a way to keep them organized, keep paper off the kitchen table, and keep it out of my way. I’m working on an organizing station, and I’ll let you know what we come up with.

Start crossing off to-dos around the house.

It’s been over 6 months since we moved into our house, and we haven’t really done anything meaningful to make it our own. We haven’t painted, we haven’t begun any of the projects we’ve talked about doing, and we haven’t even hung anything on the walls yet (I know, it’s terrible). I’m not a good decorator, but I love this house, and I want to make it even better.

Get strong.

I’ve been attending a strength-training class at my gym three times a week, and I have really enjoyed it so far. I’ve never done any strength training before, so I want to stick with it this year so I can get stronger, feel better, and change my body. We’ll see what happens!

What are your New Year’s resolutions for 2012?

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Quick and easy ways to feel less cluttered

It seems like I’m always battling clutter of some kind. Papers stacked up on the table and desks; boxes of stuff I’ve been meaning to sell or donate for months; junk mail; random things that don’t have a place, so they just sit out in the open driving me nuts. When my environment is cluttered, even simple tasks can feel overwhelming. With the holidays fast approaching, I’m craving some peace and tranquility. So I’ve been working on getting the worst of my clutter under control.

Here are a few problems I’m looking to solve. Some of them are easy — I just have to motivate myself to do it already. Some of them require some creativity, and I’d love to hear your suggestions.

Get paper clutter under control.

I think most of us struggle with paper clutter to some degree, but our problem is pretty extreme. At any given time, my English professor husband is buried under 50-200 student essays and papers. When they overrun his desk, they end up on the kitchen table, the coffee table, and even the living room floor.

Thankfully, he’s mindful of how crazy this drives me, so he only scatters essays when he’s in the process of grading them, and he puts them away when he takes a break. But with so much necessary paper around, I feel more sensitive about the unnecessary paper. Junk mail, old bills, coupons, magazines, and other junk stack up and make everything seem less tidy. Here are a few strategies I’m trying to employ to get it under control:

  • Deal with junk mail immediately. It’s easier said than done, but I need to start sorting mail immediately when it comes into the house and putting junk straight into the recycling bin. I have enough paper to sort without making things worse by keeping junk around.
  • Create a paper sorting station. As much as I hate it, there is a certain amount of paper I have to keep around at least for a while. I need some sort of solution for sorting and organizing it so I can keep it off my kitchen table. I’ve seen lots of options on Pinterest, and I’m trying to figure out the best way to handle it. If I keep things sorted, it will make it less complicated to organize it and keep it under control.
  • Go paperless when possible. I pay all of my bills online, and I don’t have any real use for paper bills. Just like the marketing emails, I need to be proactive about eliminating this paper clutter completely. In the coming weeks, I’m going to start signing up for paperless billing for every bill I possibly can.

Unsubscribe from marketing emails.

Judah is almost one year old, and I still receive annoying pregnancy-related newsletters in my email inbox. I also receive newsletters for stores where I have no interest in shopping. It’s overwhelming to wake up to 50 new email messages, and 45 of them are junk. Plus I’m always afraid I’m going to miss something important, because it’s buried in the junk. I’m resolving to hit “unsubscribe” on marketing mail that doesn’t interest me rather than just putting it off by deleting it.

Tidy up.

I’ve gotten a lot better about this in the past few weeks, and it’s done wonders for my sanity. I deep clean the house once a week, and I take a few minutes three times a day to keep it tidy. It’s simple enough to walk through the house and put things where they belong a few times a day, and it makes the house feel clean throughout the week even though I don’t have time to clean intensively. I also do the dishes three times a day instead of once in the evening, which seems to help me feel more organized.

Just do it.

We have things laying around the house that we’ve been planning to do something about for months or even years. There are items that we’ve moved three or four times that we never use. Every time I see them, I think, “I need to donate or sell that.” But then it gets shoved into a closet or under a bed, and I put off dealing with it for another 6 months. I need to suck it up and take care of that stuff already. All it does is take up space.

What strategies do you use for conquering clutter?

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