May 24, 2011

  • Things I've noticed

    I am about 99.8% done with cleaning my upstairs and main level and there's two things I've noticed since my house got really clean, organized, and purged of extra stuff. 

    1) Now that the toys and books have been "purged" the boys tend to play with toys more. They are not so overwhelmed by TONS of toys, that they enjoy the ones they have. (I do think I will purge even more toys next month!)

    For example, all the boys books are now organized. I got rid of a rather large box of kids books. Since there are not books packed in the book shelf, the boys are more likely to grab a book, sit and read it, and put it away. Crazy huh!? We tend to think we need more or that more is better, but I have found less is more!

    2) My house cleans itself. Ok, well not really...I have not discovered how to wiggle my nose and everything magically gets put away. But when I go to put things away the cabinets and drawers are not BUSTING at the seam with too much. They are more bare than full these days. So I go to put away tape in the junk drawer and it's not overflowing that I have to cram it in there, and shove the drawer filled. 

    Everything has a home and we're down to the basics of what we actually need. It's pretty amazing how clean my house has stayed. Yes, the less you have the easier it is to keep clean!

     

    For those of you interested I've created a monthly maintenance check list on an excel spreadsheet and hung it up in my plate cabinet:

    TASK:  

    Clean junk drawer

    Super Pantry (this is our room off our side porch, it becomes our catch all room)

    Side Porch - sweep and organize

    Hot Tub Room  

    Clean out toys

    Upstairs flat surfaces

    Master bedroom Dressers

    Boys bedroom dressers

    Vacuum under couches

    Clean out van

    Clean out bill bin

    Front porch

    Organize Stockpile

    Pick a cabinet and organize

    Menu plan

    Organize upstairs bath

    Organize downstairs bath

    Organize DVD's      

     

    SEASONAL  

    Back Porch windows

    Upstairs Windows

    Boys Clothes

    Hot Tub

    Vacuum walls (I have textured walls and the only way to clean them is to vacuum ), baseboards

    Oven

    Vacuum stairs

    Vacuum behind TV Armiore  

     

Comments (2)

  • I totally agree w/ the toy-thing, Heather.  I've just kept the "classics" and they're in tubs.  And they DO play w/ the toys more when they're organized...instead of a bunch of trinkety stuff!  My house is better...but I still have things to purge. :)

  • With 9 kids it seems we have a lot of stuff no matter what! My dream is to live by the woods somewhere and only use a little cabin for shelter at night:)

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