Clean House- Sans Niecy

I think if the crew of Clean House had seen my 2nd bedroom before I cleaned it, they would have been packing up their cameras and trying to move in for a major intervention.

After painting this room, I went through everything with the intention of getting rid of all the stuff we didn't need. That meant every drawer, every box, etc. got cleaned out. And this is what I was left with:

Wah. Ok, so maybe it doesn't look THAT bad in the pictures, but it really made me feel like bursting into tears at one point! However, I held them back and just got to work and now the room is looking much cleaner: 

Ah. Even the floor is vacuumed now, and all remnants of it's former disarray are but a faint memory. 

And if you are anything like me, you are thinking "Gosh, that is the most boring-looking room I have ever seen." It's true. It's clean, but boring. However, I do like to think of it as a blank slate. Now, I can pretty much do whatever I want in here! I can't wait to decorate it up. 

P.S. So sorry for being absent for so long! Between my sister's open house, hosting a garage sale (more on that later!), helping out with another open house, and getting ready for our vacation, it's been a pretty busy month! 

Chore Charts for Grownups

One thing that I absolutely love about being home more is that I can finally keep my house at an acceptable level of cleanliness. It's not perfectly clean all the time, which is fine, but it's much better than it was in the days when Josh and I both worked full-time jobs.

Even with being home more often, I've found that I still have obstacles in the way of keeping the house clean. Namely, time management. I still have a lot of things to get done any given week, and I've been finding that it's difficult to clean the house efficiently. It gets done, but not without a whole lot of "Did I clean the bathroom yesterday, or was that the day before? Should I do laundry now or go grocery shopping? Should I plan lessons or vacuum the living room?"

So finally, in a moment of exasperation, I decided there was only one thing to do. I needed to make a list. Hello, my name is Mikalah, and I'm addicted to making lists. There, I said it.

I drew up a list of the chores that need to get done around the house on a weekly basis. Then, I decided which ones needed to be done on a daily basis, and which ones could be done every other day or so. Once I was happy with the rough-draft, I made a nice, clean copy of it in Excel. Here's a visual aid so you can see exactly what I mean:


Of course, I had to use a cute font and some little vacuum/broom icons.

I made it small enough that I can fit 2 on a sheet of paper, and then I printed them off and cut them in half so I have enough for a few weeks. Now, whenever I do a "chore" I just check it off on my handy-dandy Grownup Chore Chart. I've been using this for a week now and I absolutely love it. It's just so nice to know that I'm "done" with things for the day, and I don't have to stand and worry about whether or not I cleaned the kitchen sink (I have a bad memory, what can I say). I also left a lot of blank spaces so I can adjust as needed.

Has anyone else had issues with getting housework done? Do you have any tips you'd like to share? I'd love to hear them!

If you don't like it, Re-Work it! (or just clean it)

I had high hopes of really enjoying our little porch this summer. Unfortunately, in the past couple of months it had become little more than a place to store our plants and other miscellaneous gardening materials. It became clear to me that some cleaning needed to happen.



I thought about cleaning it for a few weeks. I would wake up in the middle of the night and think "Gee, I really should actually move that bag of dirt that's been sitting there since May. The neighbors must think I'm crazy."

Finally, I just found that little bit of energy I needed to accomplish the task on Tuesday. All in all, I think it took me 20 minutes! I moved the gardening supplies down to the garage, wiped down the chairs with some Pine Sol (not just for floors!), rearranged the furniture a little, and added another small table and a pretty votive holder I had laying around.



Ah yes. That looks more like a place where I want to sit and read a book, or eat some Pioneer Woman's Fancy Macaroni with my Hubby.


See that little tree on the left? I rescued it from my Grandma's garbage. She threw it away because apparently there was one branch that was dead. I had been admiring the plant for a while, so I saw my chance and I saved it from an untimely demise. Isn't it cute?

I think my new motto for decorating is "If you don't like it, Re-Work it!" As in, don't run out to the nearest store and try to buy a bunch of things to make your house better. You will end up with less money, and more stuff that you don't know what to do with! Instead, do some "shopping" around your house, and play around with an arrangement to find what suits you best! When in doubt, it never hurts to clean. A clean ugly house is way better than a dirty ugly house, ya know?







(I’m linking up to JAG’s Show and Share day- hop on over and check it out!)