Well, it's March, and you know what that means.
Spring Cleaning time! Woo hoo!
No, I'm serious. I love Spring Cleaning. Duh, not the actual cleaning part. The planning and the results. The work involved in between the two is worth it.
I started yesterday. I have a not terribly ambitious plan to tackle one room per day. I plan my attack in the morning and do the bulk of the work during Nicholas's two hour nap period. (Oh, the leisurely schedule of a mama of one child, right?) Then the rest of the afternoon I wrap up the loose ends.
Yesterday was the master bedroom. Today was the master bedroom closet. Yes, the closet get it's own day. It's huge and full of stuff! At this rate I will have the entire house and yard ship shape by March 22. (I'm not working on Sundays.) Even the garage and "study" for which I've allotted more than one day. If you saw either room, you'd understand.
Penn will chip in on his days off. I've assigned him boy chores like washing the outside windows, changing the lightbulbs, testing the smoke alarms, and all the tasks I find especially loathesome. Oh, and he's on spider patrol. Meaning he searches the room of the day for any spiders that may be lurking under the furniture or in the closet so they don't surprise me later.
The best part is that I'll be finished the day before Easter, the day before we host all our in-laws at our home, and the day before my birthday! (All three things fall on the same day this year.)
Phase two of Spring Cleaning will be projects around the house. Nothing expensive, since we could be moving in a few months. It could also be a few years, though, so we're going to address a few issues that have been bothering us since we moved in.
1. The kitchen linoleum. Circa 1959. We're replacing it with something very, very inexpensive. But it will be new and clean. Even when I scrub the floor with a brush it never looks clean! I can't wait.
2. THE FAUX WOOD PANELING. It covers every wall of the great room! Can you stand it? How have I lived with it this long, you must be wondering. It used to bother me every second of every day. Then I got over it and now I hardly notice it. We're going to paint it, using wood paneling primer/paint. If you've attempted a project like this please let me know!
3. Curtains. Or the lack thereof. Exactly two of the house's many, many, MANY windows have a treatment. I'm going to be using The Nester's window "mistreatment" techniques which require only fabric, upholstery tacks, some trim, and a glue gun! That's right, no hardware, lining, or SEWING! (Did I ever mention how much I hate sewing?)
4. Photos/frames/albums. All of which are in need of organization or need to be hung. It's shameful how bare our walls are.
Well, I'm off to vacuum dust bunnies and purge clutter.
PS I know it is not technically Spring yet, but it feels like Spring here in Seattle and that's good enough for me!
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6 comments:
Great plan! I would love to hear how you progress towards March 22nd. Hope you meet your goal.
Oh, and #4 is my goal this Spring. Let's hope we both can tackle it before our kids go to college!
I love to clean!
I think it is b/c it is the one thing I can control and in the end there is a result - proof that I actually did something.
HAve a great day!
Kim
I'm ashamed to say (but will anyway) that I loathe cleaning. I do it only because I must.
However, I do love to paint and do household repairs. Yes, I am really handy with a paint brush and some hand tools.
I have painted panelling before and it is rather easy. The trick is to make sure you have any cracks filled such as where the panel pieces meet. You have to fill them and lightly sand them to make them smooth and even. Then you can prime and paint. Keep in mind it will probably take no less than two coats of paint. I suggest using a fluffy roller. The people at the paint store/home repair store can help you choose the right one.
Happy cleaning and painting.
Blessings,
Lisa
i've been thinking about spring cleaning... i never understood the concept, til i moved to New England.
see, i'm from Georgia, where we can have our house fresh and windows open and play outdoors oh about TEN months out of the year.
then i moved up north, where we're stuck indoors for TEN months out of the year.
and now i really really really understand why spring cleaning is so important and so necessary.
Faux wood...we had wood paneling (not sure if it was faux or real) in our old house, and we painted it our living room color and it turned out beautiful! We first primed it with Kilz paint, then painted the real color.
Thank you for the window treatment website...that's one thing I need to get done this spring!
Do you have a yearly list of Spring cleaning items you pull out? You're some kind of woman!
How is the Spring cleaning coming? I'll be starting it up next week...any hints? Ideas? Wanna fly out and help? lol
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